MindWanderer

Beautiful soundscape. One of your best in that respect. There are a bunch of small things that seem off, though. The sitar run at 0:09 seems off-key, as do the chimes at 0:37-0:45. The swells on the violins are pretty mechanical and a little slow; starting from 1:26 is a noteworthy example. 2:11-3:13 is a little muddy--lots going on here that's conflicting with each other, especially the koto, which becomes very buzzy. The koto is also pretty mechanical in that section. While I would love to see those things improved, I don't think they're quite dealbreakers, even collectively, and there's a lot here that I like. YES (borderline)

I have to admit the radar noise does break the immersion. It could have been a lot more subtle and still usable. Mailed my left joy-con in for repairs today. Hopefully they can get it back to me quickly, before I go into Zelda withdrawal. I had to save and quit at an awful point--I just found the Forgotten Temple and enjoyed the pleasant surprise you get once you walk fully inside. Spent entirely too many of my final hours trying and failing to farm horn fragments--getting close enough and then getting the shot exactly right is pretty tough, and time-consuming. Edit: Never mind, Amazon got the pro controllers in stock (finally), and I snagged one before they ran out, so I'll only be without a controller for two days. Looks like they still have some, for the moment, but not ready to be shipped out until the end of the week. Also, I finally encountered significant lag: found a Bokoblin tower with mini-towers all around, all armed with bomb arrows. All those explosions dropped my framerate to a couple of frames per second for a little while there.

I do like the calm approach and the instrumentation, but I found this arrangement to be fairly static. The percussion and pacing don't vary very much at all. Other than the addition of the flute halfway through, the arrangement is mostly subtractive, switching things up just by removing elements. I found myself losing interest despite the short length. The flute solo at 2:16-2:38 was nice, for then devolved into melody-free grooving. Production was fine, so I don't think this is too far off, it just needs a little less on-rails grooving and a little more variety IMHO. NO (resubmit)

It's a little dirty, and a little loud, but it's thrash, so that's not unreasonable. Arrangement is pretty awesome, I didn't think it was too liberal by any means: there's lots of original content, but Sam's breakdown matches up with what I hear, and adds up to over 50%. For all his self-deprecation about production skills, I don't have any problems with this as it stands. Nice work! YES

Not sure I'd call this trance, it doesn't have the long grooves I usually associate with that genre, but it is an interesting arrangement, cool mix of chiptune and chiptune-ish synths. Despite the loud, gritty bass, I didn't have any trouble hearing the individual lines. The FF8 breakdown in the middle was an elegant touch, I didn't realize what I was listening to at first, with how well it blended in. Fun stuff all around. YES

Fun facts: Netflix is producing an original miniseries based on Castlevania III. We currently have claims (and one WIP) for three of the four protagonists of Castlevania III: Trevor, Grant, and Alucard. The one hero from the game we don't have a claim for is Sypha Belmades. Sypha's theme is "Mad Woods." I still don't have someone to do a tribute to gamer/wrestler Xavier Woods. Xavier Woods has several very different theme songs, which include rap, funk, and dubstep. One of the few to have a purely electronic theme song. Surely someone can step up to this obvious challenge?

I didn't hear the original version, but I don't have any concerns here with production or speed. Performance seems good, arrangement is a nice, fleshed-out take on a humdrum source. Works for me. YES

Nice and smooth. I'm glad you submitted this; it has more fun with the melody than any other Aquatic Ambiance remix I've heard before. The piano is pretty mechanical, but it's not a dealbreaker for me despite how prominent it is, and I don't have any other concerns. I can see other judges maybe having an objection to it, but I have no problems giving this a YES

The key word is "gradually." Streaming services do this. I don't know of any standard software that applies any kind of volume standardization to a plain ol' playlist of MP3's. As such, we have to make certain guesses as to how loud a track should be in comparison to similar music that exists, not only on OC ReMix, but elsewhere in the general market. We're pretty tolerant, on the whole: unless a track has a lot of unused headroom, or is distorted, pumping, or clipping, we're likely to be OK with it (although there's certainly some subjectivity involved, as NutS and Rozo said).

There are some nice ideas here, but this is a very static arrangement. The percussion and pads are on auto-pilot for long periods of time, and the general pacing and energy level are unchanged throughout the whole thing. There's no precise repetition, but there are several sections that vary from each other in only small ways (e.g. 0:31 and 2:04, 1:02 and 2:43). I think this needs more variety in terms of pacing and approach to hold interest for its duration. NO

Awesome, you got it! Also, Flameing Daeth Fearies had to drop their claim on the CastleMania theme song (Vampire Killer), so that's up for grabs. Needs to be a kickass track with vocals, though (rap is an option).

Team Knight - Shovel Power (Shovel Knight vs. Tinker Knight).mp3 Team Robot - Lonely Cosmic Workshop - (Saturn vs. Tinker Knight).mp3 Team Knight - Ghost in the Machine (Specter Knight vs. Tinker Knight).mp3

I'm putting my round 4 reviews here since the voting thread for that one is just for votes. Armor Medley: Well, it's a piano medley. Does what it says on the box. Almost no integration of themes here, pretty much just three piano covers end-to-end. Lonely Cosmic Workshop: Nice integration of the sources. Severe overcompression, though, and the levels could definitely use some work. Could do without the fake orchestral instruments. Overall, though, this definitely hits the main design goal of the compo. Shovel Power: There's a certain deliciousness in using 80's synths to remix a game designed to emulate 80's game aesthetics. Other than some odd harmonies a little atypical for the genre, I don't have any substantial crits here. Fun stuff! Not So Deviant Ballade: Lots of clashing notes, and the various instrumental lines don't sound like they're integrated in any meaningful way. The vanilla saw lead and the overcompression aren't doing this any favors, either. Ghost in the Machine: As much as I hate cliche titles, you could hardly have chosen a different one here! Accompaniment is frequently off-key. More vanilla leads, but at least it's a couple of different ones. Tinkering on Pluto: A very static arrangement. Instrumentation and beats hardly vary at all after the melody kicks in. Heavily crowded in the mid-highs, making the instruments very hard to distinguish from one another. Seems like some lengthy sections are repeated wholesale.

Battle to the Grave: This is full of seriously clashing notes. Timing seems out of sync in a lot of places, too--part of this is due to a lead with a really slow attack, which is really obvious with some of the quick notes that never get the chance to fully form. I'm having a hard time picking out Mercury's theme, but that's not surprising given that what I can hear of Spectre Knight's theme is greatly distorted. The Siege of Venus: Pretty slick concept here to start off with. The jazz works better than after Wandering Travelers starts, though--it tries to be big band, but it's a small band. Panning is also unbalanced--it makes sense to have instruments have a "place" in the audio space, but that can become an issue when all the instruments playing at a particular time at a particular frequency range are on one side. The arrangement was just Venus->Wandering Travelers, no integration between them, and even the genre changed. Four Against One, Sounds like Fun: Interesting take on Wandering Travelers, focusing on the late part of the song. Arrangement is pretty good, mostly the usual production issues here--balance, overcompression--which are secondary concerns for this compo and can always be fixed given time.

Review time! El Polar Enker: This is kind of a textbook example of a static arrangement. There are only two leads, the guitar and the piano, and their thin and artificial character makes them sound very similar to each other. The percussion is a simple loop that's varied very little from beginning to end, and there's very little other accompaniment; the Enker section has some mid-range piano playing a simple loop, and that's about it aside from an extremely quiet bass. As for source usage, it's a straightforward A-B-A pattern, which works but isn't very striking. Arctic Robot Dance Party: A good effort at integrating two sources that don't lend themselves to integration in any obvious way. Some good ideas here, although vanilla synths and simple beats do bring it down somewhat. Some of the transitions are a little awkward, and the ending is a little abrupt. King of the Kuiper Belt: I had a very hard time identifying the source usage. On the second listen, I caught some suggestions of both themes, but they're really far afield. Nice approach with the style, although there was an awful lot of the organ lead that could have been switched up a little. Bass and highs were both a little light. Pridemoor Cat: Not bad at all! A little slow and repetitive, but it's trance. There's an odd effect in the first main section and again at the end where the lead is pushed back a little, which almost works, except that the mid-low arp is supposed to fill in the pauses in the Pluto theme, but isn't quite beefy enough to pull it off. I was worried about a simple A-B-A arrangement here, but then you started doing the layered thing, and it worked really well! It was kind of disappointing when that section ended, since it was easily the best part and there was a full minute left. Solid approach overall though. Fellow Knight: Odd how this gradually grows less melancholy and more trancey as it goes, until the end when it reverses. The lead is a little static, but it's a good arrangement. Nice, if brief, layering of the sources.

I just listened to @mikedm92's WIP, and it's pretty freaking good. And he claimed his track less than 2 months ago, setting a great example for the rest of y'all. The deadline to get a WIP in is less than a month away, so please get me something! I've only got two near-complete tracks so far, but they're both stellar and I don't want them to go to waste (though of course they can always be submitted to the site as normal).

I can pretty much quote-vote Gario here. Very unusual but effective harmonies; I can see why Gario liked them even though they're surprising to the untrained ear. Vocals are a little overly fakey, especially the one at 0:19 with its mechanical vibrato, and the baritones sound tuned just a hair below their natural range. The ending is just a little overly drawn-out, but that's just getting nitpicky, and I don't really have any other criticism. Beautiful work. YES

Lovely, emotive playing, and some inspired variations on the source. If Ganondorf's mother played this for him, though, I'd suspect that she was foretelling his tragic future, as this is extremely mournful. Now I really want to see a reverse Zelda game told from the point of view of Ganondorf's life story. It does get a little repetitive with the main refrain, especially 1:24-1:50, but I don't feel like it quite goes over the edge. The style is quite static, and I do think the guitar especially could have been varied more--I hear some very small variations in it but mostly it seems to be an autopilot the whole time except 1:48-2:11 when it takes a break. The violin playing isn't perfect, but I think that actually works well here. It's suitably humble but good enough. I'm not a big fan of that ending--it almost fades out, but then does actually end before fading all the way out. I don't have the ear to be able to tell if that's you naturally playing quieter and quieter or if the fade-out was done in your DAW, but if the former, it was overdone, and I don't think the latter is a good idea at all. If it had just gotten maybe half as quiet before closing out, I think that would have been more conclusive without changing the atmospheric intent. All in all, I don't think there are any major issues holding this back. I wouldn't mind seeing a little bit more to hold the audience's interest for the duration, but then it is supposed to be a lullabye, which is supposed to put you to sleep. Otherwise I consider this a rousing success (pun intended). YES

Very nice approach, with the string trio married to ethnic folk accompaniment. The soundscape is a little thin, partly out of necessity given this approach, but the cello in particular could have had a bit more presence, and the bass a bit too. Fade-out endings are almost always a cop-out, and even though it works better here than in most cases, it also shatters the illusion of an intimate live performance. Even an abrupt ending would have been better. Otherwise, I don't have much to add. This does pretty much exactly what was intended, with strong instrumental performances and a lovely, creative arrangement. YES

"Mellow Sonic" certainly lives up to their name here. The source was already pretty chill, but this remix turns that up a notch. Very pretty soundscape, and the production is dead on for the genre. It does get pretty repetitive, though. 2:33-2:52 is a rehash of 0:38-0:57, just with a different, bassier pad. 2:53-4:39 is largely static, consisting of very small variations (mostly of the pad) of a simple loop, which itself was first in 1:36-2:14, with the lead from 2:14-2:23 added. That said, nothing is ever exactly repeated, and the soundscape does have an evolution to it, subtle as it may be. I would have preferred some more dramatic transformations in the second half, but for what this seems to be trying to achieve, I think it's adequate as it stands. YES

I had a hard time evaluating this for almost exactly the reverse reason Larry mentioned: The intro up until 0:15 is completely at odds with what comes after, but I personally didn't care for the frenetic section from 0:15-0:26, which sounded like both the drummer and the guitarist were trying to play faster than they could really manage and had a hard time keeping in sync. The drums match the guitar work better in subsequent sections, though, until that section is reprised at 2:04, with which the arrangement ends abruptly. I didn't mind the voice clips--the way they were used was more typical of a techo arrangement, but I didn't find them to be a detractor here. I didn't hear anything of the SFV melody, either, but the drum section is a very close match for what was used in the remix. I wouldn't count percussion only as source usage, though. On the other hand, 0:56-1:07 of the remix seems to be loosely derived from 0:12-0:18 of the linked SFIII.3 source; given that it's borderline on source usage, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. If it weren't for the fact that the beginning and end were easily the weakest parts of this for me, I would have given this a YES without too much more thought. As it is, it's a much closer call for me. Given that Larry was generally positive about the drumwork, I'm willing to chalk up my biggest objections as personal preference and give this a YES

I'm not quite as stoked about this as Gario, but it's still very good. The lead guitar is significantly lacking in presence; it's nearly inaudible every time it plays along with what should be backing vocals (though fortunately this is never for long). On the other hand, the rhythm guitar is a little too loud when it competes with the lead vocals. Also, you on occasion have lead and backing vocals at the same time (e.g. 1:34-1:37), and as they exactly occupy the same space, they completely step all over each other. It's very difficult to accompany yourself with your own voice in any way other than word-for-word harmonizing; you need some sort of filter, EQ, panning, something to help separate them. The singing does get slightly flat, moreso further along into the track; by the end your voice sounds very strained. Gario's also quite right that lengthy portions go by which don't have much in the way of highs (e.g. 2:47-3:17); basically the whole instrumental break from the bass solo on feels lacking in highs due to the weakness of that lead guitar. I think this is extremely close, and I wouldn't mind at all if this passed. The arrangement is great, the performance is great. But I do think the levels need a little more love so everything can be heard more clearly, and to add some life to that lead guitar when it's carrying the whole show. NO (borderline, please resubmit!)

Fantastic concept, wonderful execution. I love the narrative, which works out perfectly, and the heroic Mario theme in minor key was brilliant (although a little dark to really sell the story). Great, evocative performance. My only crit is that this is mastered a little quietly, maxing out at about -1.7dB. Otherwise, great job! YES

I'd say it gets overly busy in more than a few places, occasionally triggering some slight overcompression, but otherwise this is pretty fantastic stuff. Lots of cool, creative, entertaining stuff going on here--it's never comes across as random, but still manages to keep tossing out the surprises. For a dance-ish sort of track, I didn't think the harmonies were overused at all. I'm looking forward to seeing more from you, too! YES

True, it's pretty conservative, but there are some switch-ups and some embellishments that make this interpretive enough, in my opinion. Pretty generic synth-rock, but it gets the job done. It is, however, pretty repetitive.1:03-2:17 is closely repeated at 2:18-3:33; there are some small differences in a few places but it's very similar even when it's not identical. That's over 1/3 of the arrangement being duplicate material, which is quite a bit. And then it just ends at the end of the second loop, with no real ending to speak of. It also gets really shrill, loud, and busy in the climax (2:03-2:17 and its repetition). The guitar and the synth arp are fighting for exactly the same space, and they end up distorting each other. I think if they were separated a bit, that would also help with the peaky volume issue. I don't think it would take too much to get this posted. Just go back to 2:18 or even 2:47 and go somewhere else with it from there. Get creative! There's plenty of source material here already, so you can afford to throw in a slick guitar solo of your own invention, for instance. Then clean up that one busy section and I think you'll have a real winner here. NO (resubmit)