MindWanderer
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Posts posted by MindWanderer
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This is a great example of how to do original writing that fits right in with the original. I kept re-referencing the source tune thinking that the remix was too conservative, and it's absolutely not — the writing is just so smooth that it feels like the additions were always there to begin with. The new solos are an absolute delight, full of infectious energy.
I see what Larry means about the vanilla beats, but I disagree that it's a problem that has to be fixed: percussion exists to support the piece, not to stand alone as its own interesting and engaging component. Certainly creative part-writing for the drums is a plus, but when everything else that's going on is so good, it's really not necessary IMO.
I haven't played Genshin Impact, so the source material wasn't familiar to me; it came across as fine but not especially memorable. This remix is exceptional, though, and I'll definitely remember it.
YES
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It's a tough one to timestamp, for sure. I hear a lot of bits that sound like extensions or transformations of the arp and bass sections of the original, but Kyle can do it more justice than I can.
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I'm in instant disagreement with Larry about this not sounding muddy. The bass is really loud and steps all over the spectrum, crushing the poor leads into mush. The SFX suffer even more; the laughing, chittering Gremlins are only identifiable when they're exposed, then turn nearly into static as the bass steals all their air.
However, the composition is pretty darn good. The original solos are absolute fire, and I love how you incorporated synths that are vaguely reminiscent of the ones used in the movie's theme song. I have to agree with Larry about the verses feeling repetitive: it's a 15-second clip used 5 times, meaning a full minute of the track is copy-pasta in this way. I thought the bookending worked great, though.
Clean up the production and reduce the repetitiveness of the main hook and this will really be a bright light in our catalogue instead of being all wet.
NO (resubmit)Update 1/22/24: Mixing is much, much cleaner, great job! A few of the synths are a little too quiet, e.g. the octavo lead at 0:32-0:46 and the pad I didn't even realize was there until 1:18. I'm not doing an A:B comparison, but it didn't feel repetitive to me this time, either. And the original riffing is just so good. Feed me some of this after midnight, please.
YES
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Starts off with an exact reproduction of the original piano solo. It's clearly not sampled, but it's a piano solo played in the exact same way as the original piano solo. Not great for the first 32 seconds of a "remix."
Then we get into the synthwave. The pads are huge, the reverb is huge. It's a wall of sound, and the lead is really quiet. You need to do a lot of leveling when the lead doesn't have as much frequency presence as everything else, and that wasn't done here.
It also seems to be pretty repetitive. It's hard for me to pick out in Clementine, because it's also pretty static; everything in my visualizer is an even color of green (verses) or orange (choruses), but as near as I can tell it's mostly 3 loops of the same thing, with extra sub-loops in the first and third verses. The pads, arps, and drums are unchanged for the duration of the piece, and the only change in the sound palette after the intro is that the lead goes up an octave during the verses.
So, the two things this mostly needs are: more dynamic content to keep the listener interested, both between the loops so the whole thing isn't repetitive, and within loops so that it's not set in a static groove for too long; and cleaner production so that each part, especially the leads, can be heard clearly.
NO
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Haven't done a Tripp remix in a while! This is pretty standard fare for her and GotW. Rambles a bit but it seems to be that the source usage is there. Not much to add, just a simple
YES
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Subjectively, this felt really source-light to me. Going through it, a lot of what Larry counted didn't sound like the source tune to me at all. Some of it is snips of only a few seconds long, spliced together in a weird way with long sustains. (Honestly I don't understand why Larry doesn't count silence that's part of the source material, but does count notes held for entire measures that aren't that way in the source; there's not really any compositional difference.)
It might be correct from a music theory perspective, but to me it sounded weirdly unpleasant throughout in a way Der Spiegel doesn't. Lots of notes that sounded dissonant, lots of patterns that seemed to clash.
And I'm afraid that to me the performances, especially the woodwind, sounded kind of squalky, and I heard some distinct breath control issues. Not surprising, since this is clearly really challenging to perform, so no shade there, and I respect you a lot of even trying something like this. But I don't think the outcome was successful enough to sound good.
I hate to vote against this, because clearly it was extremely difficult both to compose and to perform, but to my ear it just doesn't sound right, plus I just don't hear those source connections that Larry does without using a lot of imagination.
NO
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Hm, really simple and repetive source tune. Let's see what you do with that...
Unfortunately, it seems like you stuck pretty close to the inspiration. There's a more lengthy intro, a breakdown, and an outtro, but otherwise it's mostly the same 14-second hook on repeat. It's pretty close to the original in style and instrumentation, too.
Production could also use some improvement — kicks are too loud, melody is too quiet, accompaniment is much too quiet — but the arrangement is the real issue here. We need both something that deviates from the source material in a more substantial way, and which is itself not so repetitive as to lose the listener's interest.
NO
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Nice mellow arrangement. Nice use of the secondary sources to expand the concept; they blend in perfectly, and you'd never know they were from different games entirely. All the production quality we expect from timaeus. An easy
YES
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Nice mellow melancholy "intro" (that goes for 2 ½ minutes). Nothing revolutionary, but good tone. Reminds me of Hollow Knight. Then it breaks into the contentious atmospheric black metal stuff, which I personally have grown to love. As usual, it's objectively a bit muddy, but in a way that's typical of the genre.
Then we take the same journey again, but with the less melodic Burmecia theme. This part didn't hold my interest so much. This time it reminds me more of World of Goo, which had a serviceable but less noteworthy soundtrack. The black metal is muddier this time around: by aboiut 5:45, the lead becomes nearly inaudible, and this continues for a full minute.
I expect this one to get some justifiable NO votes based around the mixing, but from me, the overall package and the genre expectations are enough to earn a firm
YES
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Great sounds all around. For me it seemed like it couldn't quite decide whether to be atmospheric or techno-trance, but it doesn't need to pick a lane to generally work. Either one excuses the slow burn.
Good use of SFX as punctuation, which made up for not filling up the soundscape more fully.
It's no Kindred, but what is? It works for what it is.
YES
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A cool concept and unique industrial/synth/surf take, let down by production issues and repetition.
When the arrangement begins in full at 0:42, we have an acoustic guitar with massive reverb. The reverb is turned up so high that the notes are mushy. The runs (e.g. 1:25) just sound like one long note. It's also doing all the work; there's a little bit of fake brass accent, and everything else is percussion. The kicks are so loud that at first I thought that the guitar was too quiet, but so's everything else; the bass is so quiet I didn't even realize it was there at first.
1:50 adds a vox synth which is really dry and sounds overfiltered.
Shortly after that, I found myself checking to see how much longer the track was, and was shocked to see it was barely half over. 2:06 loops back to 0:42, with just a change in percussion and some added brass harmonies that I can tell. The brass is a nice addition, but then that goes away and the rest of the loop is nearly verbatim. And then there's a third loop, with again fairly minor changes.
There are some nice ideas, but unfortunately the track runs out of ideas at about 2:34, about 60% of the way through the track. And the muddy guitar and kicks aren't enough to develop an engaging soundscape. Please work on making all your instruments sound like they're in the same space and are part of the same or at least compatible sound palettes, so we don't have sopping wet guitar, booming 808 kicks, fake quiet brass, and dry thin vox all together.
NO
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I'm going to be upfront here: this gets a NO from me within the first 2 seconds. That ping-pong audio is out of control when listening on headphones. It's literally giving me motion sickness. So the rest of the remix is going to get only a cursory review from me because I can't stand to listen to it more than once. It's easier to listen to when the ping-pong isn't exposed, but it's still there and I can't handle it.
I have some concerns with source usage. The groove is certainly similar, and in several places it makes use of the bass of the source turned into melody, but I'm not picking up a lot more than that. I'm not able to do a detailed breakdown myself due to the aforementioned problem, but I encourage other judges to do so.
Otherwise, production and sound quality seem mostly fine. Nice techno trance tones, good full soundscape. Not a fan of the piano at 4:02+; in a rich soundscape, there's no room for a piano to breathe, and it sounds tinny. Otherwise no complaints here.
I wish I could do a more detailed analysis, but it wouldn't affect my vote.
NO
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I didn't read the blurb, but I did see the title, so my expectations were also met. Thanks for the comparison track, Emu.
I do think this remix is excessively dissonant, but dissonance makes sense with what you're trying to do here. I think Emu is being excessively nitpicky about the drums; the production could be improved, but it's a far cry from being a dealbreaker, and the stuttering arrangement is clearly stylistic and not a mistake, and I feel like it works.
Solid pass from me.
YES
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I'm not in agreement with the criticisms about the beginning feeling underdeveloped. It's pretty representative of early chillwave. It's maybe on a bit too slow of a burn, but it has all the necessary elements and it fills the soundscape with deeply resonant synths. And if it hit full speed any earlier, it would be harder to stay engaging without cutting length or going outside the current sound palette, which I think works fine. Production could be very slightly cleaner, but it's well above the bar IMHO.
I have no problem rubber-stamping this.
YES
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Source usage is definitely not a concern anymore. Nice industrial backdrop.
I do find that backdrop to be quite repetitive, though. It's complex and interesting, but it basically never lets up. It gets morphed during the the middle section (2:15-2:39), and a few moments at the end, but even for few seconds, its essential character is unchanged.
Fortunately, the track isn't terribly long. I'm not super happy with the static backing, but I don't think it's quite a dealbreaker. Otherwise, the track is creative and engaging.
YES (borderline)
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I love me some atmospheric black metal. Great sound, great performance. Definitely nails the brief.
The elephant in the room is, as you mentioned, repetitiveness. For a 10-minute track, there needs to be a fair bit of dynamic content to hold the listener's interest. This is an issue with the genre as a whole, however, and in fact this is less repetitive than similar commercial examples. I don't like that this is standard for the genre, but I can't ding you for adhering to it.
Soild work.
YES
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Nice, chill take. Good full soundscape.
The biggest issue I have is the repetitive structure. There are some changes across the three loops, but they're not very substantial. I don't find myself sufficiently engaged for three passes through the same structure, melody, and instrumentation.
The production could be cleaner. The lead tends to sink behind the pads, bass, and even drums. It has a very narrow-spectrum timbre, so it needs more presence to stand apart from the more greedy accompanying synths.
I'm also not the biggest fan of the drops that cut out completely. They make me think my headphones have failed.
It's a great start tonally, I just think the arrangement needs to be further developed to justify its length, and the balance could also use a small tweak.
NO
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Opens with some really loud, piercing synths. I can tell in the first few seconds I'm not going to be able to listen to this more than a couple of times.
The ending also just sort of stops, with no resolution.
It seemed a bit source-light to me, but I'm not going to be able to stopwatch it. Even after 2 listens, I need to let my ears recover a bit.
Hopefully other judges will be able to provide more detailed feedback on the rest of the mix. But that one synth is enough for me to give it an immediate
NO
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I'm not normally the biggest fan of brass leads, but the playing here is beautifully done. Very expressive, and good production that really shows off the rich timbre of the instrument. The rest of the performances are all excellent (there's one or two pitchy moments with the strings, but they're easily forgivable), and really show the value of having live performers. It's hard for instrumentalists to capture emotion as well as a vocalist, but I think you've succeeded here. Everything just works. Nice job!
YES
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I love epic cinematic arrangements! You'd definitely captured the tone and composition of the genre, and that aspect sounds great. I would say that the men's choir is a little quiet, but otherwise production sounds really good.
However, I'm left disappointed in a few areas. The instrumentation is pretty mechanical: the timing and articulation is too precise and consistent. This is evident in a few ways, but mostly in the strings, which swell in exactly the same way every time. The piano intro and outtro also sound exactly identical, without human-like inconsistency in timing and velocity. Percussion also sounds like it's on a loop. And although they're clearly synthetic, the two drops (1:35 and 2:30) being identical was also noticable.
The ending is also really abrupt. It's clearly an outtro, but it doesn't end on the tonic, and even the tail of the last piano note is cut off. It sounds incomplete.
This is well on its way, but for a heavily orchestral track, the realism needs to be a bit higher, and while I don't normally come down hard on weak endings, an ending that doesn't resolve fully in a sub-3:00 piece makes the whole thing sound like a work-in-progress.
NO (please resubmit)
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Nice dynamic metal/trance arrangement. The source tune is repetitive as hell, so it's impressive you were able to do so much with it. Clean production, full of interesting ideas. I'm on board.
YES
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Yeah, that opening, with thin, fakey orchestral samples, is a pretty weak way to begin. In general the strings are a lowlight everwhere they appear, which is unfortunately most of the piece. The guitar is mostly excellent, if produced a little thinly, but the one at 4:34 is has some really weak timbre, and I can't even tell if it's a bad guitar or an antique synthesizer trying to be a guitar.
Despite the performances being slightly different each time they loop, I'm also finding this pretty repetitive. 0:54-2:30 is looped twice; it's not copy-pasta but the differences are minor, mostly tiny performative variations, and easily overlooked. The same themes return at 5:38; they're used appropriately as a bookend there and there is more variation, but the loop is so long that even there it drags a little.
There's a ton I like about this. The guitar performance is phenomenal, the original writing is excellent, the orchestration is beautifully realized. But the orchestral samples and lack of articulation are a major letdown, and the arrangement relies on them heavily. The loop that's longer than some entire submissions, and over 1/3 the length of the entire track, does indeed cause it to drag in my opinion.
To me this is borderline. The strong aspects are really strong, but are they enough to counterbalance both the lack of realism and the amount of repetition? I feel uncomfortable saying yes, because either of those things have been dealbreakers in most submissions, let alone both together. I don't like rejecting orchestration and performance this good, but I don't think we can do otherwise and still be fair and consistent in our judging criteria.
NO (please resubmit!)
Edit 9.28: I read Teo's response, and I have just a few things to add that Gario, who did a fantastic job of explaining our concerns despite not having been part of the original vote (which speaks to our evaluative consistency), did not.
First, I apologize for my confusion about that distorted organ. We hear a lot of badly synthesized guitars around here that sound a lot like that! The fact that it was an electronic organ processed in the same way an electric guitar would be explains my confusion.
Second, regarding popularity as a metric: We don't listen to submissions the same way most people listen to music. In fact, I don't always listen to music the same way when I have my "judge hat" on as when I don't. We pick at things that might not merit comment when listened to casually, and we reject a fair number of mixes that are commercially popular. We also accept a fair number that probably wouldn't be very popular, because they're doing something esoteric or with an obscure source. Our not accepting a remix says very little about whether it's "good" or even whether we enjoyed it. And I think we all enjoyed this submission very much!
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Nice, solid metal adaptation of the theme. Pretty conservative approach but there's plenty of original interpretation added and layered on, including a neat solo. Pretty much everything one would expect from a take like this. Production could be a smidge cleaner (the various synth pads in particular get muddy), but I think it's good enough as-is.
YES
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Cool arrangement of an awesome track I've never heard before. Thanks for that.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it's a limitation of FL Mobile or what, but production here needs a fair bit of work. The bass and kicks are super loud, to the point where the kicks are pumping, and the distorting way, not the nice sidechaining way. The entire soundscape is muddy and mid-heavy, very light in the highs.
The synths are also pretty vanilla, making the whole thing sound like a remix from 15-20 years ago. Again, not sure how much you can do with FL Mobile, but I don't think it's working for you here. There's some sort of percussive synth that starts at 0:49 that sounds like Link from Zelda 1 taking damage, which I find hilariously out of place.
This is fun to listen to, but you may need to port the project or MIDI over to a desktop DAW to do the finishing touches.
NO
*NO* Castle Crashers "Four Brave Heroes"
in Judges Decisions
Posted
My intiial impression is that this is one of the better Pixel Pirates remixes we've had on the panel. Good groove, pretty clean mixing, interesting embellishments.
Production isn't perfectly clean, though. There's an instrument that creates a lot of white noise. It's most noticable at 1:15-1:29, but it's there almost the whole time starting from where it goes electronic. I can't tell if it's an out-of-control sweep, or way too much tail on a cymbal, or what, but it muddies up the whole mix. It gets even worse when the tambourine or the SFX are added (e.g. cheering crowds).
It also gets pretty muddy when the lead drops into the lower pitches. It isn't selectively EQ'ed, so this causes it to overlap with the bass. 2:25-2:52 is the worst example here because there's just so much going on: the orchestral harmonizing, the crowd, and things I can't even pick out. I can't hear the vocal part Kris mentioned at all; I'm only assuming it's here somewhere.
I tried several times to hear those dissonant chords, and I can't make out anything that sounds wrong to me.
This is really close, IMHO. The writing is really good, and the production is passable most of the time. The cut-off ending automatically demotes this to CONDITIONAL at best, but between the bothersome white noise and the occasional muddy sections, especially the climax, which has a lot of cool stuff going on that I can barely hear, I find myself leaning more towards a
NO (resubmit)