MindWanderer

It's not often we get a remix that goes less off the rails than the original, but here we are. Quite conservative for a while. When other instruments get added in, it really does get quite heavy; I didn't understand what proph meant by that at first, but now I totally agree that it's the right word. The bass is so loud, so repetitive, and has so much presence that it's crushing everything else. Listen to 2:02-2:17 for a good illustration; the bass is so overwhelming that it's muffling the lead, even though most of the bass presence isn't even where the lead is. The climax (3:10+) is quite dense overall, not leaving the instruments any room to breathe at all. That said, this is quite personalized, the performances are excellent, and it's just generally fun. The production bothers me enough that I wouldn't want to listen to it too many times in a row, but it's not enough to send this back over. YES Update 12/4: The new mix isn't worse. While the bass is not quite so heavy, the overall mix is still quite dense, with the ensemble leads especially sounding quite smushed. Still, it was a YES before and it's a YES now.

Opens with a very loud, rumbling, distorted bass pad. I have to turn down my volume by 25%, and it still sounds really unpleasant to me. Of more concern to me is source usage. The source is a drone in two pitches and two notes. Literally the entire thing consists of a two note "melody," a one-note/two-tone pad, and a "laugh" effect. This remix uses a similar pad (same pitch, different timbre). The original writing here uses the same chord progression as the source, but we have a long-established tradition that chord progression in and of itself does not constitute source usage. And finally, the "laugh" has been broken down into its component parts and remixed into a melody: directly once or twice, then riffed on extensively. It's clever, but it took me literally a half-dozen listens before it dawned on me what was going on here, even with Zach's explanation. I'm extremely borderline on the question of source usage here. The connections exist, but they're in no small part academic, and I think few people will put them together without having it spelled out for them. Most of the melodic writing departs significantly from the inspiration. Fortunately I'm not in a position to have to decide one way or another, because that pad is way too loud and blown-out for me to get my vote. I'm very curious to see how the rest of these votes go. This is extremely clever, well-performed, and demonstrates a lot of proficiency and intuition about music theory. I'm really not sure whether it's too loose and esoteric for the majority of our listeners, but I need that pad adjusted anyway. NO

I really like the French café feel to this, which I got even before the vocals kicked in. That combined with interleaving You Are Not Alone in as a bridge made this sufficiently transformative to me. It's smooth enough that if you don't know the sources, the addition is mostly seamless, except that it pushes the singer's range a bit below their comfortable range. The singing is simple but adequate, although it does get a trifle flat at moments. The conclusion is unfortunately the most dramatic of these, literally ending on a sour note. My nitpicks are nitpicks. Overall this was well-realized and creative. YES

Wow, that's loud! I had to cut my volume by a full 50%. The votes above mine capture the major issues. Production is a major issue, with balance and distortion issues throughout, and it's also far too conservative. Along with that conservativeness comes repetition: 0:38-1:06 is repeated at 1:50-2:18, and the ending is a loop straight back to the beginning; this makes the last minute of a 3-minute piece a repeat, and 1/3 of a piece being repetition is too much. NO

Those instruments are dryyy-y-y! The articulation is really good, but everything still sounds unrealistic because there's no delay or reverb on anything. It's like every individual instrument was recorded in an absolutely pristine sound booth. The arrangement is largely very good. It's a great orchestration of Heartache until 2:20, although I did hear a few notes that sounded wrong to me. At 2:20-2:39, arguably through 3:07, the arrangement gets a little schizophrenic, with several rapid-fire, awkward transitions in a row. The ending is a little random, too. Overall I'm not as keen on this as the judges above. The improved articulation is very good but balanced out by the lack of resonance. The arrangement is very good but marred by that bizarre middle non-sequitur. Overall I can live with both issues, though. YES

I'm in instant agreement with proph. The synths and production are downright difficult to listen to. It's muddy and overly simplistic at the same time, with the lack of percussion being a big part of that. It's also pretty loud. I almost didn't listen all the way to the end even once, and I would have missed how the last 25% of the arrangement is outtro. There are a lot of good arrangement ideas. Other than the lack of percussion, there's some intriguing complexity going on here, and you took the source in some exciting directions. But the execution needs some more work. NO

As proph said, there's not a whole lot to this original, so it presents a challenge to remix. And I think that challenge was easily met. The remix expands on it in multiple ways, adding instrumentation, breaks, additive and subtractive sections, and just generally turning out a solid piece of music. Production and performances are up to The Plasma's usual high standards. Lots to like here. YES

Wow, this is crazy loud. Right off the bat I had to cut the volume to 3/4 of my normal listening level, and at 1:08 I had to cut it down to 2/3. And then it drops so low at 2:23-2:50 that I could barely hear it. There's nowhere I can set my volume where it doesn't either blow out my eardrums or be too quiet to make out. That alone is enough of an issue for me to vote for sending this back. As for the repetitiveness, yeah, it's still two loops. There are some differences in the percussion, in the rise, and in the FX, and that does help a lot. I'd consider 2:37-3:19 to be different enough from 0:54-1:35, though not by a ton. But that still leaves 64 seconds of the loop that I'd consider effectively copy-pasta, which is 29% of the total length. Too much. I'll add Clementine's temperature visualizer for emphasis: The loop is really obvious when you see it like that. Again, I give credit for audible differences that are too subtle for that visualizer to pick up, but it still gives you an idea of the problem. NO

There's definitely some mud around the bass range: the massive reverb on the kettle drums, the bass pad, the low end of the piano, and the bass/cello are all fighting for a fairly narrow range there. If this does get sent back, there's a lot of room for improvement in the clarity there. Some stereo separation would help as well. As for length, yes, the treatment certainly does lend itself to something larger in scope. There's 44 seconds of build-up and 28 seconds of conclusion, leaving only 52 seconds of epic cinematic meat on a 2:04 piece. It really does feel like it was originally something longer and was trimmed down to trailer length. All that said, I don't think either issue sinks the piece. It feels too short, but that's a subjective impression and not a standards violation. Production is within tolerance, IMHO. The arrangement is such a smooth use of the two sources that I had to go back and listen to the FFV piece a few times to remind myself that this wasn't all Fisherman's Horizon, and it's definitely not. It's a great orchestration with a great sound. From me, this earns a YES

VVVVVV has such a catchy soundtrack. Too bad it's so brutally hard. Really nice old-school EDM here. Even catchier than the original. Lots of fun. Production could be cleaner, though. The soundscape is pretty muddy and flat, especially 0:46-1:28 like Larry pointed out. The whole drum kit also lacks punch, with squishy hats and claps, and thin kicks. The arrangement carries this, though. Expert job of making the original melody into something fresh. YES

I'll be honest, I forgot this game even existed! I don't hear any of the production issues proph and LT mentioned above. I suspect there might be some mud in the sub-bass, but if so it's not coming through in my setup. And the spectrograph shows an aggressive cutoff at about 18.5kHz, but I hear plenty of highs getting through. I do think the leads are occasionally too quiet, notably in 2:08-2:21, probably because the leads are thin and the bass and kicks are fat, but it's not a big enough issue to bother me. While it would be made stronger by cutting out a bit of the bass, especially in the kicks, it's not enough to hold this back. It's a ton of fun. YES

The cluttered mid-lows stood out to me as well, especially after 2:57, and it does indeed make the arrangement sound more static than it otherwise would. Otherwise, this is a fun, original take. Less Latin-inspired than I expected from the name, more focusing on the cheesy horror aspect of it, but that's not an objective complaint. I'd definitely like cleaner mixing but I also don't think it's a dealbreaker. YES

Same. If I close my eyes and use my imagination real hard, I can make out some vague connections to the source material, maybe. But calling it a stretch would be an understatement. We're looking for things where the connection to the source material is much more easily evident than this. NO

I wasn't familiar with this soundtrack. And after listening to it, I'm still not sure I'm familiar with it. "Frenetic" would be an understatement. The remix goes after that same manic energy, and achieves it. The approach is somewhat conservative in that sense, though it does a lot of other interesting things with the arrangement and instrumentation. It's awfully hard to compare the two because they're both so busy. I didn't hear any balance issues that didn't sound intentional. Yeah, the drums are in front, but it's breakcore, I expect that. I'm pretty sure it sounds the way it's supposed to sound. I think it could maybe have synths with richer timbre for what you're trying to achieve here, and the thin tones are hurting how much "space" the non-percussion instruments take up, but that's nitpicking. This is solid work all around. YES

I hear the connections, I think. They're not the same chords exactly, but the patterns map. It's hard to tell how much they map, but it's clear to me that there's a strong connection. The problem is that the original barely qualifies as music, and thus so too does the remix. We've NOed RET tracks like this in the past, so I think this vote will be predictable. It's pretty, but it's a tough sell. I didn't hear distortion at 2:43 or 2:57, but I did hear a percussion instrument (first quietly on the left, then louder together) that I think might be what proph heard. Sorry, but I think this one has to be a NO Edit 2/7/24: All right, played side-by-side in 10-second chunks, it's a lot easier to make the connections. I'm actually surprised it was as hard to tell as it was initially, because it's really obvious when you listen to it like that. I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I struggle with one of these minimalist pieces. My concerns are alleviated. Thanks again to Rebecca for being patient with us and helping out. YES

That bell LT mentioned does sound off-key, but it's not the only thing to me. There's a synth that first plays at 0:30 that sounds detuned to me, and the instrument that starts at 1:52 doesn't seem in tune with everything else either. Production is kind of muddy, and there are several vanilla or uncanny synths. And that ending is abrupt. However, I'm otherwise not coming down as hard on this as the judges above. I liked the guitar solo, and the static groove made sense in the context of the genre. I didn't detect any total copy-pasting, though there were loops with additions. The tuning and the synth selection are my hangups. Otherwise this is pretty good. NO (resubmit)

I miss this game. The soundtrack never grabbed me at the time, but it's so nostalgic. I do think some of the synths are overused and a little vanilla (e.g. 2:08-2:25), especially justaposed against the excellent guitar and violin, and those fake instruments, especially the trombones, aren't doing this any favors. Fortunately, they're clearly making no effort to pretend to be real. Otherwise, this is fantastic. So much fun, such a dynamic arrangement, and fantastic performances. Great stuff. YES

As usual from timaeus, I wouldn't even have known this was two sources if he hadn't told us. Smooth, elegant, and clean. Perfectly appropriate use of a fade-out. I really don't have much to critique here. YES

I have to agree with the above. It still sounds strangely random and inconsistent. 0:13-0:16... are those fret noises? Created by a flute? Why are they only here and nowhere else? Without knowing exactly what you're trying to do here, the overall approach just doesn't make sense. Even knowing, it's hard to follow. If it were easier to map the different instruments to specific characters, maybe it would come across better? I'm not sure. Overall, it's simultaneously too static (repetitive beats, looped sections) and too wild (synths and poorly-sampled instruments coming in randomly). You're trying to achieve something very difficult even for someone more experienced. I encourage you to put this project on hold for a while and work on getting your fundamental production, synthesis, and arrangement techniques down on some less ambitious pieces first. NO

I'm not getting clipping from this on my setup, just a overwhelmingly boomy sound from those kicks. It would have been safer to cut it below 0dB, but I don't see anything above that. I've heard old jazz recordings that sound a lot like this, so I'm inclined to give it a pass on this front. The overly clean sampled instruments are a bit more concerning but again not necessarily a dealbreaker. However, I do think the arrangement is underdeveloped. The general structure is three loops of the same thing, and while there are some changes in the riffing and whatnot that make each loop distinct in an appropriately jazzy, improv sort of way, for me it's not enough. There isn't even an intro or ending to make the first and last loops distinct. I like the approach, but I think it needs to do more to hold the listener's interest. And the votes above mine contain very good points as well. NO (resubmit)

I remember enjoying this soundtrack when I played the game, but this track sure is a whole lot of nothing. The remix adds a lot to the textures, but it's still more of an ambient piece. Not what excites me, but it's done well. YES

I don't think I would have rated this highly for the compo, because this is mostly the melody from FF9 and sometimes the beat from FF5. It uses both themes, but Freya's is absolutely dominant. However, even use of two themes isn't one of our judging criteria here! It's fun and original. The pacing is pretty weird. There's a really slow burn, with 35 seconds of intro, then 47 seconds of build-up, a brief teaser, then a few seconds of music box, and finally the main section kicks in at 1:54. This is followed by an entire minute of music box bridge, and the last 42 seconds is music box outro. Altogether only about a minute and a half of a 5-minute piece is the "main" section. Not that there's anything objectively wrong with this, but it's an odd decision. Balance is pretty mid-light except during the guitar parts, with a lot of stuff going on in the lows and the lead carried by a few shrill synths. That's my only real complaint. Otherwise this is great stuff. YES

An exciting, dynamic arrangement of an obscure track, just what we like to see! You took one of the most boring final boss themes I've ever heard and turned it into something engaging and original. I will say that the distorted guitar creates a gritty sound that seems like a production artifact at times. I had to listen several times to realize it was just "natural" white noise and not popping. Otherwise this sounds great. Strong work. YES

I was a YES before, and I see no reason to change that. It's conservative, for sure, but there's a bunch more orchestration added than a single whistle and percussion. For me it's enough. YES

The metal portion, from 1:02 on, is pretty darn good. It's on-key, the balance is great, everything I liked about the earlier version is true and pretty much everything I complained about is fixed. Vocals could be easier to understand, but that's a genre thing. The first minute, though. I recognize that all these flourishes and modulations are intentional. But to me they sound really, really bad. 0:54-1:00 in particular sound like a novice singer hunting for the notes, and 0:18 sounds like an adolescent whose voice cracked. Again, I know this was a decision and not a lack of skill. But I can't get over it. I won't begrudge anyone else their YES votes, but you won't be getting one from me. NO