MindWanderer

Sort, sweet, nails it. Nice instrument work and a great, swinging arrangement. It's a simple, repetitive source, but the remix keeps it short so as to not overstay its welcome or tread too far into original territory. There are a few unusual note combinations in the middle section that sound dissonant to me, but it's nowhere near enough to bring this down. Great work! YES

Yeah, I can't resist a Lufia II remix, either. I definitely concur with Gario's crits about the humanization, though. It stands out the most with the lead strings, but it affects the piano a lot, too. The piano is especially odd because it's supposed to be an acoustic piano, but you've applied ping-pong panning to it, which is usually reserved for electronic keyboards (and other electronic instruments). The EQ issue Gario describes is definitely there as well. It's most striking for me in the wave crash SFX, since the real thing has much more presence in the highs. The reduced spectrum also means that the sections with the wave crashes get a little muddy. There's also about 5 seconds of total silence at the end, a bit more that is really necessary. Still, I don't think any of these issues are enough to hold this back. It's a lovely arrangement overall. YES

There are some interesting ideas here, but I have a few concerns. First, the main lead is kind of bland, a little too quiet, and the portamento is a bit over the top. The issue is made more striking by how much it's used in exactly the same way--three times through the "A" part of the source, each time identical except for a single changed element (the growls the second time, and the claps the third time). For that much usage, the lead instrument really needs to be firing on all cylinders, and it's not here. Second is the repetitiveness, as I hinted before. 0:22-0:55 is nearly copied at 2:01-2:34 (just with the added claps, which is a very minor change). 1:17-1:39 is also taken from that, with the addition of the growling wubs, which are a little random and off-tempo, not a great addition. That's nearly a minute of near-duplicate material out of two and a half. Third, the ending is just a single string hit and some trailing gritty kicks. Not only is it pretty unsatisfying, it doesn't match the sounds present in any other part of the arrangement. It sounds almost as if it were the ending to some other song tacked on to the end of the last loop of the source. You certainly have the fundamentals here, but I think this needs some more variation, some more love in the sound design, and a different ending before it's ready for prime time. NO

A neat little arrangement that manages to have a lot of fun with a very simple source. My one big gripe would be with the percussion. It's heavily loaded in the highs, to the point of being a little piercing. The sticks are the worst offender here, but the clap and snare are up there, too. The tambourine is up there, too, but tambourines are supposed to be pretty high anyway. The piano is a little bit on the mechanical side, too, but since this is such a synth-heavy mix, I don't feel that's a major issue. And I don't think the percussion EQ is enough to bring this otherwise solid mix down. YES

I do hear a connection between the singing and the source, but it's highly stylized. Both the mode and the rhythm are changed, the ends of many of the stanzas are completely changed, and the off-key notes make it even harder to place. I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, myself, although I can see this going either way. However, I do think that Gario's comments about the vocals are spot-on and need to be addressed crucially. You've written a rather challenging piece to sing, with some low notes that are clearly at the edge of Meg's register, and some rapid almost arpeggiated sections that are hard to keep up with, so there's nothing wrong with a little bit of digital correction to make up for it. 0:48-0:53 seemed to be a little behind the beat as well. I really would like to see this posted, so please look into working on those vocals a little, and some more overt ties in with the source melody sure wouldn't hurt. NO (resubmit)

Found my feet tapping while listening to this, always a good sign! Great energy levels, solid sound. My one big concern is that there a big chunk of copy-pasta going on: 0:27-1:43 is the same as 2:54-4:10, and 1:44-2:11 is cribbed from that part as well. That's 103 repeated seconds out of 257, almost exactly 40% of the mix. EDM is usually on the repetitive side, but that's a whole heck of a lot. It ends right at the end of the repeated section, too, nothing added to close it out. If not for the bridge and the kick being left out in the intro the second time through, this would very nearly be the same song looped twice. Given the overall quality, and the genre, I'm nearly inclined to pass this anyway. With just something slightly different the second time through--some different filters or effects, even some little things like SFX, I think this might be OK. But as it is I think this falls on the side of NO (borderline)

An unusually conservative remix for pH, to be sure. I think the extra layers constitute enough interpretation for our standards, though. Some great orchestration here. The levels, however, still need some work. There's some heavy distortion in the louder sections, most notably 2:17-2:42. I'm actually seeing it clipping by 0.35 dB or so. After listening to this looping all afternoon, ultimately I think the distortion is just too much. It's a really great arrangement overall, which is why I didn't mind listening to it so many times, but that crackling really is distracting. Should be an easy enough fix for Pete, so hopefully he can do that and send it back our way quickly. Edit: Yes, yes he did. YES

I have a small but annoying peeve about the new aesthetics: the way the gray gradient background cuts off, it sometimes for me looks almost exactly like the scrollbar. I'm constantly grabbing the wrong thing and trying to drag it.

Oh, man, I really want to love this one. There are some gorgeous soundscapes in some sections, when you have the pads, bubbly arps, and harmony all firing at once. Very Tangerine Dream. That said, those sections are few and far between. There's a lot of subtractive styling going on, where one or more elements are intentionally missing. That's a great technique for emphasis, but it's used to excess here, leaving much of the mix feeling thin and empty. The end of the intro (0:26) is especially jarring because you drop out the kick two beats before the melody starts instead of just one, so it feels less like a riser and more like a disjoin. (And it's a shame that kick never comes back; I rather liked it and wished it made it into the main arrangement.) The saw lead jumps dramatically in volume at 0:53. It's a little too quiet before, but it's much too loud and biting after. And while it's a perfectly appropriate choice for a lead in a retro synth arrangement like this, it really can't be the only lead. Even in a short arrangement, you need to switch it up a little, and at least rotate it with one other lead from time to time. There's a lot I like here, but it feels incomplete. Flesh out your soundscape through more of the piece, watch your balance levels, and vary the lead a little and I think you'll have a winner here. NO (resubmit)

I'm not sure I'd describe this as "disco glam rock," but this is certainly a lot of fun! And it does, as promised, have a lot going on. The e-piano section from 0:45-1:10, especially from 0:58 on, is extremely busy, and the rather thin lead is buried behind all the accompaniment. When the sax comes in, the e-piano sounds unpleasantly distorted, with the warbles in the instrument causing some subtle dissonance with the lead. 2:03-2:16 also has some balance issues, with that one disco-esque synth coming too far forward. The transition at 2:44 is extremely abrupt. I like where you ended up going with it, but a little more lead-in or another transition element would have helped this not sound like a break between songs. The sax that comes in at 3:23 is mixed really, really loud. I had to drop my listening volume by 20% to get it to a comfortable level, and the rest of the song is much too quiet at that level. Overall, I really like this arrangement a lot. Strange, yes, but clever and entertaining. But the volume of that last sax section is a dealbreaker for me, and some work on the balance in the more "disco" sections would be really appreciated as well. NO (resubmit)

Nice, rich soundscape for jazz. I love that powerful, meaty bass and those crisp hats. I thought this was an odd choice of a source for a remix, but it makes perfect sense given your approach here. The kick is maybe a bit too beefy--it's really thick in isolation, and causes a little bit of overcompression when mixed in. There are a few other overcompression moments, too: The riser at 1:29, a little bit with the synth from 1:32-1:47, and the SFX at 2:39-2:49. The chimes at 1:02 and 1:06 and 1:48-2:10 are quite piercing. A few of the notes in the latter section are well into the discomfort range for my ears. The synth at 1:32-1:48 is harmonized strangely with the piano. I'm having a hard time identifying what exactly is clashing, but maybe another judge can point out where the dissonance I'm hearing is coming from. The playing is all quite mechanical. I found it most striking with the piano and the percussion, but I don't hear any instruments with any timing/velocity variation. The percussion especially seems to be on auto-pilot much of the time, which is especially problematic for jazz. I'm a little torn here. The arrangement is neat, and I love the overall feel. The production issues are nontrivial, though. I think this could be an easy pass with some fairly minor improvements to the levels and the humanization, but for now I'm leaning just on the side of NO (borderline, resubmit)

Right up there with Jonathan's other remixes: beautiful playing, great interpretation, just lovely all around, but once again mastered a little too quietly. It's not as severely quiet as some of his other remixes, though, so it should be within tolerance this time as well. The ending is just a little on the abrupt side. Otherwise, fantastic work. YES

Ooh, that opening contrabass sounds super fake, not a great start, and it goes on for a long time. Then it's quite jarring going into the rock section at 0:50, which has very little low presence at all. The highs are uncomfortably shrill, and I had to turn down my volume a lot because my ears were literally hurting. Everything is jammed into the mid-high to high range, making the mix sound very thin as well as sharp. I also had a hard time picking out source usage, partially because the lines carrying the melody were often covered up, but I'm personally just not willing to go through it methodically checking for source, because I find it so uncomfortable to listen to. Besides, the mixing is more than enough to make this a NO

I have to admit, that vibraphone really is awfully mechanical. I don't mind some rigidity of the synths, since they're clearly fake anyway (although those could also stand to sound a little more organic), but the vibraphone in particular is an instrument where little changes in timing and velocity make a huge difference in how it feels. Otherwise, this is a great interpretation of the original--faithful to its tone, but still original. I had to turn my volume up quite a bit to hear the cut-off hiss at the end that Larry mentioned, but he's right, it's definitely there and should be fixed. I'm a little more on the fence about this than Larry, since the vibraphone is the only "real" instrument in an otherwise electronic mix, but since it's so prominent and so vibrant (no pun intended), its being so rigid does stand out as an issue. It's not too hard a fix, assuming your soundfont has decent velocity support, so please try to improve that and send this back to us. NO (resubmit)

I tend to think of DLC in terms of value as compared to the content in the original game. For instance, Mario Kart 8 has 16 tracks, and the DLC has 16 more. The DLC characters and car parts are just aesthetic, but the tracks are the main thing, so 100% more content for 20% of MSRP ($12/$60) is a very good value--kind of my gold standard for DLC value. Smash 4, on the other hand, has 51 characters to start with, and each DLC character costs between $4 and $6, effectively ~2% of the base game's content for ~10% of its cost. Really only a good value if you like and play the game a whole heck of a lot, way more than you would play other games. BotW's Season Pass costs $20 (1/3 of MSRP) and gets you an enemy rush mini-dungeon, a harder difficulty mode, a "new feature for the in-game map" (whatever that means), a new dungeon with a new short story, and a couple of random items, one of which is purely cosmetic. Considering the base game has 100 shrines and 4 full dungeons, plus whatever the final area is, this is much more in line with the Smash 4 DLC--good if you're a superfan, not a great value otherwise. I'll probably pass.

Reminder: Next (and potentially last) check-in is in two months from today. There are nine current claims. Out of those, I have three WIPs and two are new claims. Although I'd like to get new WIPs from everyone, that means four people have been on the list for a long time and haven't turned in any music yet. If I don't get any new signups and none of those four people don't turn in a WIP, this whole project will be suspended indefinitely, probably permanently.

Global Test Fires for Splatoon 2 have been announced: 6 one-hour timeslots over 48 hours, March 24-26. Looks like it'll basically be the same weapons and whatnot as the demos so far. I finally managed to snag myself a console preorder (during the brief window Best Buy put them back up), so I should be able to do at least part of the Saturday afternoon one and the evening ones. I really want to find out whether the joy-cons+grip are adequate to play or if I'll need to plunk down the cash for the pro controller. Anyone else planning on being there?

Oh, wow, Jorito and Gario, Farewell to Ballade and Strike the Earth? You guys had better not disappoint!

Ah, The Wand of Gamelon. Along with Link: Faces of Evil and Zelda's Adventure, the only reason anyone's even heard of the CD-i. And this is a suitably ridiculous remix for that ridiculous game. I love how it tries to be anthemic around 1:11, but it's just too goofy to even take itself seriously and quickly falls apart. I don't have much to add either. Lemon has this style down to a routine production-wise, and while this arrangement is a little random and strange at times, that's a big part of its charm. Let's get the CD-i added to the remix database for the very best of reasons. YES

Fantastic instrumental work here. A little of the violin work is on the harsh side, but overall the effect is quite impressive. I do have two major concerns, though. First, the arrangements in each section are extremely conservative. Wherever the original instrument is in the artists' repertoires (piano, bass, woodwind), they use it; most other instruments are substituted 1:1. There are a couple of small additions (e.g. the strings at 0:50), and there's some extra material in the transitions to help them change the energy level and flow better (e.g. the strings at 2:23), and a bit at the end, but otherwise there isn't much in the way of interpretation going on here. Second is the issue of "medley-itis." I feel like the transitions here are borderline at best. They're not completely abrupt; there's definitely an effort being made to try to get the sections to flow together. The first one is maybe OK since you could call it the end of an introduction, but the transitions to Undersea Palace and Corridors of Time are jarring, and it doesn't help that the sections are completely different in energy level. I'd love to see some of your work here on the site, but I really don't think this is the sort of arrangement we look for. NO

I didn't feel like the references to "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" were even noticeable unless one was specifically looking for them, and even then they're subtle. Despite how iconic that theme is, I had to specifically look it up to listen for the tie-ins. The strings were a little mechanical, but there wasn't much of them. The vocals coming in halfway through were a little surprising--that works better in Morricone's work where the vocals are much more in the background--but that's a minor issue. The arrangement does get a little hot and busy in the climax (3:48-4:20, especially 4:04 on), but that's my only major concern. Otherwise, really good stuff, absolutely accomplishes what it sets out to do, and definitely should be part of the album's mixflood. YES

I've heard so... many... remixes of Bloody Tears, and yet people still manage to surprise me. I actually really liked the bass that came in at 0:23. The timing was strange and took me a little while to wrap my head around, but when I got it, it worked for me. I can see why it might not appeal to everyone, though. Otherwise, Gario's crits are well-placed. Those vanilla synths are a serious drawback, and the arrangement of the accompaniment is so good that the balance really does need to give it some more space to shine. I'd love to hear a version of this that better enabled the listener to appreciate the good stuff that's going on here. NO (resubmit)

Not sure how many teenagers or ninjas would appreciate this gorgeous jazz brass, but I certainly do. Joe and Jordan never disappoint when it comes to their playing, and jnWake gave them a great arrangement to work with. Liberal and creative, but definitely recognizable, and smooth as anything. Drags on a little bit towards the middle, but that's typical of the genre. I personally find the ping-pong panning on the Hammond organ to be very distracting, but that's also pretty typical. Ending is a little anticlimactic, but it's not terrible. Great job by all, and a good start to this album. YES

Very interesting, liberal interpretation of this source. Took me a few listens to wrap my head around it, since it turns the original's bass into part of the melody. Definitely agree with Gario's assessment of that bright brass synth; it's quite a bit over the top, especially at the sudden jumps (0:51, 1:48). The fact that it was the lead throughout the bulk of the mix was definitely a drawback, made more problematic by the fact that there is a fair amount of copy-pasting going on: 0:27-1:23 is copied at 1:24-2:20, 3:24-3:51 is a copy of the end of that section, and 0:07-0:27 is identical to 2:07-2:27. Close to two minutes of copy-pasting out of a four-minute mix is quite a bit. There are breaks spaced about at appropriate intervals, which helps, but not enough. The ending was quite abrupt, sounding like it was supposed to go on but was just left unfinished. Coming at the end of a loop as it does, it really leaves the listener hanging. I really do like this approach; it was a creative and lively way of handling a source that really didn't have much to it, but I feel like this needs to be less repetitive, especially considering how much of the repetition features that borderline problematic brass synth. You can use that for some of it--as Gario said, it does help capture the intended Eurobeat style--but this is too much IMHO. Add some more variety and tighten up that ending and I think you'll have a winner here. NO (resubmit)

Ah, I heard this one in the workshop. Note that AngelCityOutlaw collabed on this one (his very short contribution to the blurb made that unclear). I wouldn't have pegged this as Hans Zimmer, but as Hans Zimmer as interpreted by Timaeus, sure! Epic cinematic with some electronic wackiness thrown in, good stuff. Although as I said in the workshop, and other commenters agreed, the glitchiness doesn't always work well--the crackle at 0:21 in particular just sounds like a wiring problem, and elsewhere it doesn't sound like it's in the same sound space as the instrumentation. It never sounds unintentional, but doesn't always blend in with the music. I also mentioned in the workshop that the strings, especially at 1:14-1:42 and 2:20-2:48, are uncomfortably fake. In those particular sections, the identical timing of the swells is especially grating. A string note at 1:20, and where it repeats, also sounds off to me. Otherwise, this is a solid arrangement with solid production. The strings and the glitching do bug me, but the overall arrangement is more than strong enough to forgive them. YES