MindWanderer

I'm not sure I'm sold on the notion of counting 2 seconds of backing arps as "source usage," but, using Slimy's timestamps, I count 53% usage of the original melody, so it's fine on that count regardless. There were some sections a little light on the high end, but mostly I didn't feel this was an issue. Otherwise, I don't have much to add. It's big, it's bold, it's creative, and the orchestration is just spot-on. Fantastic work. YES

Note: This is on Vampire Variations III, and got YES'es in the project eval way back when. The instruments are indeed somewhat mechanical, but my main concern is how conservative this arrangement is. The general layout is identical until almost exactly the halfway mark, and the instrumentation consists mostly of (vast) sound upgrades to the original instruments--the only difference I hear in the first half is the addition of a bass and some SFX. Otherwise every instrument in the source is used in the remix, in place. The second half does branch off into original territory, though, and in fact is quite liberal at that point. Production is solid. I'm a little torn here. The first half (almost to the second) is very little more than just a sound upgrade. The second half takes mostly those same instruments, plus a flute, and expands on the source creatively. There's little in the way of sonic variation; the bass in particular is pretty much all the same, just varying whether it's there or not; the pizzicato strings are there pretty much throughout. On the other hand, it's not totally static, and the instruments are humanized adequately, which helps a lot. It's a gorgeous soundscape. Ultimately, this does have both the source and some original composition, though I wish they weren't all clumped into their own halves. It's just dynamic enough not to induce fatigue, and the production is there. I'll see what other judges have to say but for now I'll go with a YES (borderline)

Oof, I don't envy you this challenge--those Ground Scaravich chords are hard to work with. You made it work, even though those chords do get a little repetitive after a while. The sine synth from 0:59-1:19 is a little on the quiet side, and gets buried by the guitar. In 2:07-2:20, it gets a little too busy, and the pad turns to mush. However, those are my only production crits, and they're minor ones. The ending is a little unsatisfying, but I'm not sure how much that can be improved, since Ground Scaravich in general is pretty unsatisfying. And otherwise the arrangement is fine, doing interesting things with some pretty short sources. Strange indeed, but solid. YES

Nice source. I'm not familiar with the Touhou games, but their soundtracks continue to impress me. I don't have anything against pure chiptunes, either--I have plain ol' Mega Man and a few other NES games in my go-to playlist--but "breadth of sound" is definitely something this remix is missing. The soundscape is extremely thin, with virtually no presence in the low range. I think that alone is reason enough to send this back. It also sounded to me like a lot of it was off-key. For instance, at 0:20, 0:41, 0:46, 0:53, 1:06, for starters. Maybe these are just strange chords I'm not familiar with, but they sounded extremely dissonant to me. They're not in the original source. Moreover, the main hook is a really liberal interpretation of the source. It uses similar patterns and elements, and starts off the section with the same notes, but then goes off into original territory. My breakdown, using the linked video for reference: 0:00-0:12=A, 0:13-0:36=B, 0:37-1:00=C, 1:01-1:14=D, 1:15-1:38=E 0:17-0:37: A few notes from E at the start of each phrase, otherwise different 0:38-0:57: B 1:02-1:17: C 1:18-1:37: E 1:54-2:11: A few notes from E at the start of each phrase, otherwise different 2:11-2:27: B 2:38-2:55: Reminiscent of D, but not the same 2:57-3:12: C 3:12-3:30: E Total: 109/218 sec. = exactly 50%. If you count the few notes that do match from the sections I felt were too liberal to count, it has a bit more margin. So it's fine by me on this count. Finally, the ending is really unsatisfying, just sort of stopping without preamble, not even on the tonic. So, short answer: production is fine, pure chiptunes are fine, but I feel like this arrangement lacks depth of sound, and has a few other more minor issues that help hold this back. Lots of good ideas, though, and I think this would have a solid place on the front page with not a whole lot of work. NO (resubmit)

I'm mostly in agreement with Gario. The muddiness in 1:48-2:18 didn't bother me all that much except for a few seconds at the end, but that section is a little overcompressed as well. I was OK with the ending, too, although I felt it would have been stronger if it were allowed to trail off naturally instead of being cut off. Otherwise, strong arrangement, solid production, good creativity, just overall great stuff. YES

Lovely instrumentation, not at all what I was expecting (especially since the title had prompted me to think of Sbeast's remix). This is a very liberal interpretation. Much of the first half uses the source's chord structure, but uses the actual notes for just a few notes at a time. I'm going to timestamp the sections I can clearly peg as coming from the source: 0:21-0:23 0:27-0:31 0:40-0:41 0:47-0:53 0:56-1:12 1:23-2:24 2:47-2:50 Total: 99/202 seconds = 49%. I'm going to call that close enough, given that the chord structure strongly evokes the source even without the melody. And I'm probably missing some of the accompaniment from the source being used. Otherwise, this is really nice. Other than the strings at the end (which have some odd static to them), the instruments are executed well enough to fool a casual listener, and the production is clean. The arrangement is peaceful without getting boring, with frequent changes in instrumentation and energy. Fantastic work! YES

Can't argue with Gario on his reasoning. Those fake instruments really do hurt: the horns at 0:14 are almost a nope right there, and the total lack of dynamics on the percussion gets old quickly. It hurts most when they're exposed, but 1:36-2:00 gets so busy, with all the instruments plying for center stage without backing down at all, that it hurts there too (the piano especially sounds fake, and also muffled). There's also some copy-pasta--0:30-0:57 and 1:09-1:35 sound identical except for some extra percussion in the gap the second time around--and that's a big deal in an arrangement this short, made worse by the fact that the (lack of) dynamics in the instruments is exactly the same both times. The first 30 seconds could also stand to be louder; I felt like the rest was OK loudness-wise. The orchestration really is solid, and I really enjoyed the arrangement, so I too am on the fence a bit. I don't think the humanization has to be perfect--maybe going so far as to add vibrato might not be necessary--but adding some variation to the timing and velocity, especially of the percussion, would make this substantially better and reduce the impact of the copy-paste. So I'm just on the side of NO (borderline, resubmit)

Interesting approach to add synth drums and energy to such a quiet, minimalist, acoustic source. It would need an actual title, of course. The piano sections sound really strange to me. In addition to the dissonance (which might be intentional, given the style), it's very mechanical, hitting with the same timing and nearly the same velocity every time. The violin, too, is very mechanical. 3:46-3:54 is especially problematic, given the quick notes. The arrangement is pretty good, with lots of interesting changes to the soundscape as it goes, but still sounding like a cohesive piece. Very difficult to do given the constant arpeggio needed to tie this in to the source. I like this, but given how important the piano and violins are to this, their robotic nature is really bringing this down. Either work on humanizing those, or possibly redevelop this using synths like the first 56 seconds (I was totally on board up until the end of that part). NO (resubmit)

Holy hell, what a source. It's so musically minimalist I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. It does have a consistent bass line, and this remix does make use of that throughout most of the arrangement, as well as a few other similar elements, so I'm going to go ahead and say it's fine on that front. It also captures much of the feel of the original without actually retreading almost any of its sounds, so it seems sufficiently original as well. From a production standpoint, it's deliberately strange, but little seems objectively off to me. Everything can be heard distinctly, and I don't hear any distortion that isn't intentional. My one big concern is that both the staccato and the legato strings are extremely mechanical, and especially in such a chaotic mix, making them sound more organic would definitely be an improvement. However, I don't think that's enough to bring the mix down as a whole. I don't think it will be to many peoples' liking, but overall I think this is a success. Edit (04/14): On closer inspection, the remix doesn't actually use the source's bass. I had thought that the high-pitched synth that starts at 0:39 used it, pitched a few octaves higher, but, while very similar, it's not quite the same. And the source's bells don't quite have the same pattern either. All three use the same simple pattern of nothing but evenly-spaced notes of only two different pitches, but the pattern of all three is different. And Sixten already admitted that he didn't attempt to replicate the drum lines of the source. I don't hear anything extra in Ruthless (Reprise) that made its way into the remix, either. So while the remix is definitely evocative of the source--with some production tweaks I could easily see it being part of the same soundtrack--it doesn't actually remix any of the music. I'd vote in its favor if the patterns of those instruments were a match, though, which could be a fairly simple change, so I'd definitely like to see this back on the panel. NO (resubmit)

I'm pretty much on board with Gario's assessment. Great orchestration, and a really fun arrangement, with clear usage of some challenging sources. 2:00-2:46 gave me goosebumps, and I'm sure I won't be the only one--Vic Viper's theme from Gradius is a classic. My one critique would be that there's a really wide dynamic range--3:00-3:08 and 3:54-4:06 in particular are much, much louder than most of the rest of the track, and there's nowhere I can set my listening volume such that I can hear the first 50 seconds of the track clearly but not blast my eardrums out during those loud sections. However, that's not an uncommon issue with orchestral arrangements, and I can live with it given how outstanding the rest of this is. An easy YES

Cool source, I never knew the GB iteration of Battletoads had a different soundtrack. This is a pretty fun arrangement. Nice job taking that jazzy source and taking it to new, even jazzier heights. That said, this arrangement really does go completely off the rails in terms of source usage. When it reaches 1:40, it goes into "inspired by" territory with original jazz riffs. The bass line remains somewhat similar to that of the source but at that point isn't close enough, in my opinion, to be considered source usage. It returns to overt source usage at 4:12, briefly, before fading out. That's over 2 1/2 minutes of original content in a 4:32 arrangement (the last 14 seconds of the file are completely silent, so this really has to be trimmed at the very least), which is too much. It's also very static in terms of sound. Nearly the whole arrangement, including that whole middle 2 1/2 minutes, uses the same instruments, the same energy level, the same style. The percussion is almost totally on autopilot as well, extremely monotonous. It really needs something to break things up and keep the listener interested. The riffs are fun and interesting, but there should be some sort of separation as well. There's a tiny break at 1:18, and another at 4:12; not only does there need to be a lot more of that sort of thing, but at least one section with a substantially different soundscape would really help. Production seems fine, I really like the style, and the keyboard performance is excellent, but this arrangement isn't the sort of thing we're looking for. I'd love to see this fleshed out into something that spends more time closer to the original source material, with some more variation thrown in. NO (resubmit)

All yours! Feel free to add in some Tragic Prince, if you like, to make the arrangement stand out from all the other metal covers of Dracula's Castle out there. Alucard is one of the most prominent characters of the series, so I'll want to make sure this one is really solid before finalizing things.

I wouldn't say you "need" to play the first 3. They haven't aged well, and 3 was considered the low point in the series. I've been playing 4, since so many people loved it, and honestly I don't think it lives up to modern standards the way old Final Fantasy games do. Long, monotonous dungeons (some of which are part of a set), unmemorable characters, and the godawful decision to make all of the "technique" names completely arbitrary with no descriptions. 2 was worse--I've started it maybe 4 times and always ended up quitting at one of the "series" dungeons (the dams or the Dezo dungeons). Music is pretty good, though.

I'm with Gario on this one. I thought the intro voice clip worked really well (turns out dying Nazis sound a lot like death metal, who knew?), but the one at the end, indeed, not so much. I think you could have done something better with that scream without including the music. It does seem a little medley-ish on the surface, but as Gario said, it's not an uncommon form, the transitions are elegant, and as a whole it flows quite nicely. The musicianship is solid, the interpretation is on point. Great job taking some primitive MIDI music and infusing it with life. YES

I'm not much of a connoisseur of free-verse rap, but this seems to be all there. Production is clean; a little minimalistic but it fills the space nicely. The soundscape does change things up as the piece progresses, in subtle but noticeable ways; a tad repetitive but not overly so. Not much to say; it does what it's supposed to do, very effectively. YES

There's still a page for "Rebellion" by Strader, Chernabogue, and Detective Tuesday, and the download still works, but the YouTube link goes to a dead video. Not sure what the deal is there, or if there's a way to handle that discrepancy more elegantly.

Interesting choice to base the melody on the quieter vox/strings part of the source, rather than the more dominant piano part. No reason you can't do that, although I'm having a tough time identifying source material though most of it. Here's what I can hear: 0:01-0:09: Appearance Fanfare 0:34-0:59: Phendrana vox/strings 1:13-1:38: Phendrana vox/strings 1:38-1:51: Phendrana piano runs 2:17-2:42: Inspired by, but very different from, Phendrana bass synth section (2:42 in video) 2:43-3:07: Phendrana vox/strings Total: 95/212 sec. = 45% The three runs through the main melody are also really similar. The second time through, the acoustic guitar and wind SFX are replaced with an overdriven guitar, and the third time a synth is added, but otherwise they're unchanged. The performance even sounds identical each time. It starts to feel stale by the end. That third repeat is also overcompressed, with the overdriven guitar causing the other elements to pump a bit. There's also some pumping in the wind SFX at the beginning, but that sounds like it's due to short samples with awkward cuts between them. The "runs" section from 1:38-1:51 is also really awkward, and doesn't sound like it fits the rest of the music at all. (Edit: Reading Gario's review, I realize this comment wasn't quite clear: I don't think there's anything wrong with the section in and of itself, I just think the transitions into and out of it are abrupt and make it sound out of place in the arrangement as a whole.) The ending, too, is sort of head-banging thrash, but the energy level of the rest of the arrangement doesn't build up to that at all. I'd also like a musician judge's feedback on the combination of the electric guitars with everything else. To me they sound extremely dissonant. There's some good musicianship here, but I don't think the arrangement is where it needs to be, and there's room for improvement on the production front as well. NO

Oh my, this instrumentation. Epic only begins to describe it. Such a rich soundscape. Gorgeous. Arrangement-wise, certainly it's laid out in nearly the exact same way as the source, but there are lots of small change-ups, plus of course the instrumentation is just above and beyond. "The Landing -Redux-" is perhaps the more accurate title, because in a sense it's "just" a massive sound upgrade of the original, but that upgrade is so substantial that I think this is well above the bar. Those big percussive hits really cut through the mix, and there are so many of them, it does get a bit grating after a while. In 2:15-3:05 especially, it causes some overcompression. There's also perhaps too much of a dynamic contrast between the loudest and softest sections, such that I can't hear them both comfortably without adjusting the volume. Those are my only criticisms, though, and they're fairly minor considering the strengths of this arrangement. Overall, this sounds fantastic, and I'd love to see it posted (with the backup title, of course). YES

Well, 5 months later, I finally finished Prime. My thoughts: From an artistic standpoint, it's amazing. The music is great, more atmospheric than melodic, but it nails the atmosphere. The aforementioned reflections of Samus's face on the inside of the visor are brilliant. The environments are gorgeous. It's all just really, really solid. However, it's clear that the gameplay was shoehorned in to an artistic vision. Platforming when you can't see your feet is just a bear. The gimmicks applied so that you have to keep switching visors and guns are forced (Color-coded enemies? Enemies that can become invisible to light or infrared or x-ray, but not all three at once?), and all that nice art design goes out the window in heat or x-ray mode. I already found it hard to navigate and locate enemies in first-person, so playing with different visors just made it worse. The map design is also really poor at times. The fact that they had to keep popping up hints to tell you where to go next, where the 2D games unlocked new areas in an intuitive manner, says a lot. And that they had to railroad you into revisiting certain areas by looking for "artifacts" to unlock the last area meant that they failed to lay out the maps in such a way that you'd explore them fully and enjoyably anyway. The worst moment was right after I got the Ice Beam. There's an effectively one-way passage right after that which deposits you in front of the sunken ship, which conveniently can be entered with the Ice Beam. Seems to be the right way to proceed, right? So that's just what I did, since the hint to go to Phendrana hadn't popped up yet. That section is underwater, but you're going down so it doesn't impede you much. Seems like it would be set up like AM2R, where you have to navigate in water without the Gravity Suit for a little while on the way to get it (which you ultimately do). But no... at the bottom of this long underwater shaft is a barrier where a popup informs you that you need the Gravity Suit to proceed. At this point I would have just reloaded to my last save, except that there was a save right in front of the barrier, and I had used it. So I spent the next half an hour climbing slowly and laboriously out of the underwater shaft. This took so long because without the Gravity Suit, vision underwater is horrible, and there are enemies that blind you if you get too close, and are invincible from far away, so they were constantly either knocking me down or blinding me during my jumps. Just horrible. So I will probably not be playing the other two games in the series. I would watch someone else play them in a moment, but first-person platforming needs more justification than this to work right IMHO.

Interesting choice of source. For all the Chrono Trigger that folks love to remix, I don't think I've heard this one done before. I can see this arrangement in a survival horror game, all right, but during one of the open-air peaceful moments where you just sort of look around and appreciate the ruin. It's beautifully evocative. The jump in volume at 1:04 is pretty severe. I had my volume turned up to appreciate the beginning, and then had to turn it down a lot. Some dramatic differences in loudness are OK, but it should be comfortable to listen to the whole thing without turning the volume up or down, and this isn't. In addition, the loud section is overcompressed at points; for instance, there's some strong distortion at 2:53-2:58, and some brief distortion in other places. The strings are clearly inhuman, especially in the introduction where they're completely exposed. The long, droning notes (e.g. 0:40-0:48) are especially problematic. The choir is really synthetic as well. Over 3 minutes of basically the same thing, in a mix 5:44 long, is a lot. Some sort of variation in instrumentation, energy, etc. somewhere in the middle of that would be really nice, or you could just shorten in. I don't feel like it would be hurt much by cutting it down by a minute or even two. And then 4:17-5:20 is really static as well. As for source usage.... The original is really sparse and not very melodic. The arrangement is in a different key and starts in a different place, so I'm finding it extremely hard to identify where the melodies actually line up. It's certainly done in a similar sort of style, but I'm not at all sure whether this constitutes an arrangement of it by our standards. Maybe another judge will be able to make the connection better than I can. I love this atmosphere, and I love the challenge that you went for. There are some definite production issues which I feel are holding this back; other judges may be able to provide some other thoughts about the arrangement as well. I definitely think this has potential and would love to see it posted in some form, though. NO (resubmit)

I didn't hear the original, so I don't know if this entry is an improvement over it, but at least some of the major issues that judges described back then are still issues now. The orchestral elements are still rather, though not completely, robotic, especially the strings. Strings are a very hard instrument to get right because an actual human will vary each note in several different ways, not just in velocity and timing. The nice build-up at 1:42, for instance, sounded exactly like the OST from the Lunar games for Playstation, which was all very well and good for the time and technology, but unless you're clearly and intentionally trying to mimic PS1-style sounds, we're looking for a higher level of quality than that. The hats, while not totally on "autopilot" loops anymore, still use identical velocity and timing throughout, and they constitute all I can hear of the percussion. This leads to a lack of energy in the mix.Most of the synths, especially until 1:09, are also very vanilla and not very interesting. When you use generic synth sounds, there should generally be some sort of aesthetic reason for it, and I'm not sensing that here. The pad is also oddly dissonant; I don't have the music theory to tell you whether it's actually discordant, but it sounds unpleasant to me. The ending is still disappointing, with no climax, just trailing off on that vanilla bass synth. All that being said, I didn't feel like the synths and orchestral instruments were at odds with each other, like the judges complained about last time. The celesta was too quiet, and the filtered synth at 2:39 interfered with the other instruments' frequencies and sounded muddy, but otherwise I felt that they intermixed perfectly well. EQ balance was decent except again for the muddiness at 2:39, and the drums in general. The judges who reviewed this last time can say for sure, but this sounds much better than what they described before. So keep working at it, and don't be afraid to ask for advice in our WIP forums. NO

Interesting, liberal take on Magus's theme. It's almost unidentifiable; up until 1:04 I definitely wouldn't have pegged it without knowing in advance what it was supposed to be. Then it repeats the main hook twice, and the next section, I'm not sure if it's original or a heavily modified version of some other part of the source. Lavos's theme starts off with the famous intro, and then it goes off again into an interpretation I can't identify as a part of either source until it returns to Magus's theme. On the production front, there's some overcompression: it sounds like the kick and crash cymbal are causing some pumping in the other instruments. Also, the lead guitar is panned right a bit, and some of the cymbals are panned left, creating a distracting imbalance. You can see it in the waveform, too: there's quite a bit more headroom (about 0.3dB) on the left channel than on the right. There are some balance issues, too: for instance, in 0:35-1:00, the lead is buried behind the crash cymbals, rhythm guitar, and bass. There's some creative stuff here which I love, but the production and lack of identifiable source are bringing this down. NO

Some lovely instrumentation going on here. Such a peaceful atmosphere. Nice graceful ending. I have some balance concerns, though. At 0:50-1:01, the reed (oboe?) is too dominant, drowning out most of the other instruments, especially the melody; this is most severe at 0:54 and 1:00. At 1:30-1:44 it gets very busy, and the melody is buried by multiple instruments as well as sounding muddy. 2:08-2:20 is very busy and a little chaotic; I have a hard time keeping track of everything here. 2:45-2:57, the melody is again buried, this time by the flute and what sounds like a viola; in addition, this section is pretty muddy as well. The strings at 1:26 are pretty artificial, but otherwise I think the realism is above the bar. Work on balancing things out so the melody can be heard and all those complex accompaniments can be appreciated, and I think this'll be golden. NO (resubmit)

I didn't hear the original submission, but I felt the instrumentation, while still clearly artificial, was adequate. It was pretty busy in places, and there were a few brief moments where there was an accompanying instrument that was really hard to catch--the pizzicato strings, in particular, are nearly inaudible--bit I don't think this was enough of an issue to bring the piece down. It's a fun conceit, well executed, and I'd love to see it posted. YES

Agreed with Larry on all points. In addition, I thought the piano arrangement was really strange, with some unusual chords that I didn't feel fit the overall style or energy level at all. There are some clever ideas, and I definitely encourage you to pursue arranging in this direction, but the repetition and lack of realism here are significant issues that need to be addressed. NO