XPRTNovice

Literally thought I had accidentally opened the same submission to judge twice because of the email. Same problem with the snare on the last song. It's on autopilot, way too out in front, and not a good choice for frequency. This song suffers from the opposite problem as the other, in some ways, in that I feel like there's way too much going on in parts of the spectrum (the high end) vs not having enough fleshed out. The cymbal on top at 2:08 has the same problem as the snare, and now that I'm hearing them both together I can't focus on anything else in the piece. I don't necessarily have qualms with this from an arrangement perspective, but with the drums as they are, I can't say this is above the bar. But we have some production problems here - the consistently pan-delayed hihats, the snare, the crash - they're really hurting things. We need a fuller mix with better selections of instrumentation and a better mix of them before we can talk about passing this one, IMO. I don't want to leave this piece behind without saying anything positive, so I do want to say that I like the general vibe you've got going on here. It's very Mega Man, while still being original enough for my tastes. With a little more attention to detail on the production, I think this one will flesh out nicely . NO

Felt like the freq spec dropped out at :54 and didn't really come back in for 30 seconds. That snare is on autopilot and is sticking out pretty hard in my ears. 100% with prophetik on this one. When that thing is going, it's hard to focus on anything else - there's very little variety to it, and its soundscape sounds a little trash-can-lid. Got major transformers vibes at 1:50 The break at 3:00 is being murdered by this snare. We also have about a full minute here where very little seems to be going on, and its quite repetitive, until 3:50 where we get into the last bit of the song. In general, yeah, we gotta fix the drums, particularly the snare, and we gotta kill some of the repetition in the arrangement and fill back in some of the frequency spectrum that feel empty. I think that honestly could solve some of the arrangement problems by simply adding variety in the instrumentation - it would fill out the arrangement AND fill out the sound. NO

I like the soundscape here, it's simple, easy to listen to, but I feel like we might be lacking a bit in the interpretation department to get this above the bar. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though! That means this piece has more potential, and I hope you have a ton of fun bringing it there. Before 1:00 the melody I think needs to come out. It's buried back there, and it probably needs another 2-3 db of volume to really qualify as a lead. The section after 1 has a nice groove to it, and I think may be the most full part of the song, except I'm not really getting the sense of anything being a "lead" until 1:40, where we drop back into the melody pretty much exactly as the source is written. Your mixing and production is on point, though it's coming out a little soft to me. Even just a quick normalization pass on this would eke another 3db out of the whole track, which I think it needs. Overall, though, this is feeling more like a sketch than a finished arrangement to me. We're mostly sticking to the source, particularly the melody, as it was without much interpretation behind changing the vibe a few times. The soundscape sounds a little sparse, like there is room to make some stronger choices to fill the space. I can tell there's absolutely potential here and I would love to see you finish this! NO (please resubmit)

I have no recollection of hearing this before, so I am coming into this without judgments on previous mixes. I agree with Larry that there's maybe too much room in the middle, but I didn't listen on phones. I might consider making that adjustment, but it's not so bad because there are so many elements in here that it does seem to fill the space, as paradoxical as that might sound. There is an overall deadness to the sound here, but it's more in the "could be better" than "Doesn't pass the bar" territory. It sounds muffled, like the whole tune is coming at me from behind a pillow. This I think is the biggest overall problem with the piece. I like the variance of the leads and the instruments, swapping between leads in order to keep the relatively simply melody interesting. The ending was nice; I enjoyed you playing with the tempo there and having it feel like it came to some conclusion rather than just dropping out. To me this passes the bar, despite the adjustments I suggested above. YES

SUPER solid, full mix. Really utilizes these expensive speakers. The groove is nice, good pace. You know your way around the genre for sure. There's a but. I gotta say though it's a touch repetitive, especially since we're really only playing with one slice of the melody for almost all of the arrangement. Not just a touch. It's really repetitive. We basically have one melody that we hear throughout the song, and though we switch lead instruments, often that lead instrument goes for a full minute of repetition before moving onto something else, and then we don't really get much of a break before coming back to that very same melody over and over again. By 2:45, I was really, really tired of hearing it. By 4:30, I had to stop listening to the song. There has to be something that can be done with the interpretation for that lead that makes it easier to listen to, because right now it's giving me the impression of a doorbell being rung over and over again. The source is repetitive, yes, but I've seen lots of things done with sources that are half as rich as this. You can split the lead in half, you can double time it, half time it, add harmonies. Add flourishes. Right now it's a copy/paste of the original, and then copy/pasted many times over. NO (vary arrangement and resubmit)

Intro: okay, I'm groovin. I'm groovin. We've got chiptune, it's lo-fi, it's fun. Enjoy the bass coming in at :50. Not too much, still stylistically appropriate, followed by a HELL OF A DROP. I enjoyed that a LOT. It was so atypical and interesting to my ear, and then we kick this shit right in at 1:18. Got actual goosebumps there because I was not expecting it and it was very well done. The drums are starting to fatigue my ear here just before 2:00 - I think it might be because we have so much high end in this arrangement. With a it more low end that might temper out, or you might drop the chipsnare by a paltry 2db. Also loved the drops/hits at 2:35. Enjoyed how they played on the earlier thing you did, but added a little variation. Overall, I think my brain wanted a more full soundscape of this piece, with more of the frequency spectrum being used, but that might be a stylistic departure that you're not wanting. I try hard to say less of "this is how I would do it" and more "this is what it makes me feel" so there's that. While I agree with Brad on the "missed opportunity" - which is somewhat what was trying to say above about wanting some more fullness in here - I don't think we can equate a lack of potential to missing the bar. YES

So this is my first introduction to the debate around this subgenre, and I have to say I don't quite get it. I'm able to parse out everything with my ears. Yes, it's heavy, yes there's a lot going on, but to me, everything has its place. My only critique on this side would be that the drums, particularly the cymbals, are too far back, but it's almost a nitpick. My main beef with this piece is the length. It doesn't give me enough story to bear repeating so many times. I'm huge on brevity, and my gut tells me you could literally cut almost 50% of this piece without harming it. I understand the lean towards almost an Opeth level of length, but to me it fatigues my ear and breeds disinterest. By the time 3:45 came around, I couldn't believe I had only finished half the song. This is where maybe I could understand a stylistic/philosophical discussion of "I want you to be washed in these 4 measures for 4 minutes, the monotony is the point" but I'm not sure I'm on board with it. Then the song just sort of...ends. We don't get a build that's very different from what happened before it - we essentially get another serving of the first half of the song relatively unchanged, followed by a sort of random hit at the end. For me, its arrangement, but I'm borderline on it. The piece feels like a treadmill - even if it is a well-mixed, fun treadmill. Given the discussions above, maybe there's something I don't understand about this subgenre, but there needs to be an ending to this piece. NO (resubmit)

I mean, yes, we're all in agreement here on the mastering side of it. Needs to be louder, I'm turned up quite a bit just to hear everything. But I have some other production/arrangement critiques. The repetitive cello lick that starts at around 2:00 goes on forever, and is the most prominent part of the arrangement. The strings often sound out of place, with the entrances/exits of them being really abrupt. The cello dominates for a huge part of this arrangement, but doesn't really have much to say. I'll be honest, I love this arrangement. I think it's absolutely beautiful, and I feel sad that I have to NO this based on what I'm hearing. This is really ambitious, but the strings overall kept kicking me out of the arrangement. The attacks and releases need to be smoother, more carefully planned, specifically because you have them as such a prominent part of the arrangement. The highs are often really high, and the cello/dbl bass sticks out like a sore thumb through a lot of the arrangement. The real issue here is overall blending. The 1:33 violin sustain is very loud compared to the rest of what's going on, and hardpanned to my left ear so it's just sitting there out in the open. The drums and vocals, to me, are mixed the best, and they're the feature of the piece, but the foundation sustaining them isn't working. I want to emphasize how much I love this, and how ambitious this is, but we're falling really short in the mixing department for me on this one. NO (resubmit)

Okay, so, this arrangement is awesome. Personally I don't care if you're trying to fill the shoes of the references you named, and I'm not going to judge whether or not it passes the bar based on whether or not you hit a target. I think this is a great interpretation with a lot of really fun interesting things going on. But I am going to no it because of the mixing. If you ARE going to go for this hybrid EDM thing, the sound has to be full and vast, with a lot more punch and substance. Right now, I feel like we're really missing a lot of the bottom half, almost like you carved it out intentionally in mastering, since it seems to be missing in all of the instruments, not just the ones that should be providing that bottom end. This arrangement has so much power, but it's hamstrung by the way you put it all together. I don't care too much about the panning, but I do care about the way that it's taking a lot of incredible instrumentation and sucking the life out of it with EQ. My issue with giving feedback is that I am not entirely certain how to do it because it's SO busy and there's SO much going on in SO many places that I can't really pick out specific things for you to add foundation to, but I would start with the kicks and the bassline. Also, watch how many times you're stacking pads, and watch how they're EQed as well. I hear several of them stacked on top of each other, so what that does is skew the curve to the right, and suddenly we're missing a lot of stuff. This is a really great arrangement, I know this can be incredible with a little bit of work! NO (resubmit!)

Man thank you for introducing me to this cool ass source. I've never even heard of this game, and this is an 8-bit BOP. This is a great mix. I love the vocal callouts, I love the mixing. THe track is full without being overbearing. We've got some good room to dance without the repeats being draining on my patience/ear. We get a nice break at 1:21 for a few seconds as we build back in, with the chiptuney stuff in the ground being fun. And oh look a modulation. Nice. I'm really not a dance guy, and repetition bothers the hell out of me, but it's funny to me that I'm at odds with other judges on this one re: repetition. Could you have done more with the last third? Yes. Would I have loved to hear that? Yes. Do I think you should do it? Yes. But does it make it so that it doesn't pass the bar for OCR? Nah, I don't think so. It's a YES from me. If you WERE to try to turn this from a B+ into an A, I would just nod to the comments of the other dance afficionados here - variety, storytelling, and an ending worthy of the first two thirds of the piece rather than the sort of flop-over-dead one that you've got in there right now. YES

Okay. This arrangement ROCKS but needs mixing fixes bad before it passes the bar for me. First note suffers from being a copy paste and we get like, half a measure in there. LEft-panned guitar solo is jarring, too far in front and...left panned. Should be much more center. Fixed a bit when the ocarina ?? synth? second guitar? comes in on the right side, but it's still very imbalanced, and having all the important parts come out almost hardpanned left is really distracting. When more instruments come in at 1:06, it fixes some of the panning for like a second, but then we get another strong instrument (the sax) ALSO being panned to the left, keeps me leaning one way on my chair in not a good way. These pannings can be automated to move the balance around as the song requires it so that we're never feeling like the song is lopsided. Love the instrumental performances all around. Very solid. 2:09 saxophone feels like it's missing a huge part of the soundscape and you need to add that EQ back in. If I dropped this into a parabola, I'd see a gigantic lack of data below 1k, and then when the solo ends, we sort of mysteriously get a change in the EQ and it all of sudden appears on the right side of the sound spectrum with no clear transition as it fades away. Not sure what was going on there. Great solo though 2:35 guitar suffers from Left Ear Syndrome again. The ending is the part of the song where the arrangement falters. The rest of it is so great, and then we get the sense at the ending like everyone just sort of decided to stop playing. The kickdrum alludes to more coming, and then just sort of stops. But to me, it's the panning of this that really needs fixing. I would have passed this track easily without it, so I think it just needs some adjustments. NO

INTERIOR. DINER. NIGHT. Rosa and Cecil are at the end of a weekend-long Gysahl Green binge, dark circles under their eyes as tired old women in poodle skirts pour coffee for patrons that probably can't even taste it. A Shelby's alternator grinds outside, unable to start. Okay, so that's the vibe I'm getting from this, which is a fun and original take on this tune. The performance is loose- at some times, too loose, but in a way that kind of ads to its charm. The piece, overall, is really mechanical here for me, almost like a Band in a Box backing track to allow the guitar to do its thing. It's sleepy, and a little sloppy, and the ending sort of just...happens. This feels more like a rehearsal of a garage band than it does a performance. I really do understand why the judges are split on this one, and to be frank I am too. We're barely eking by the length requirement, and even at that 2:13 mark it doesn't feel like much happens in the tune. I am really torn between saying that the piece just needs more *something* and understanding that the vibe/genre/style might be broken if we added too much to it. The mix, to me, is fine. It's produced exactly like this genre should be produced, in my opinion. I'm erring on the side of YES, but with a friendly warning that the target genre is what's saving this; if a piece was this lackadaisical in any other genre, it would be a no from me. YES (Borderline)

Really ace job on the mixing on this one - the dance soundscape is full without being a wall of sound, you've got everything space right. The loudness is a feature, not a bug, and it's managed well by spreading out the source instruments in a way that doesn't make it feel overwhelming. Arrangement wise, it's a touch repetitive even at 2:45, but you vary things up enough to pass muster for me. The source isn't exactly rich with ideas, and you have some nice variety breaks like around 1:18 with the synthy stuff (and tubular bells, nice) coming in. We keep the driving feel of the dance beat throughout the track without fatigue. You also bring in a lot of different soundscapes that blend old and new, like Flex said, which I really found fun to listen to - and I really don't like dance music. Nice! YES

I gotta say, I wasn't really convinced about this one until things got moving around 2:06. We've got a lot of staleness in the mix, the kick drum is flat, without dimension, and the overall performances of everything except the guitar and organ are very programmed and mechanical. The piano sound at 3:01 is overcompressed to my ear, making it sound boxy and even occasionally getting small breathing/pumping effects in there, which kind of ruins the soundscape there. Then, having the piano in the background of the organ, still overcompressed, is throwing me out of the next section. The guitar performances lack a lot of expression, mostly have no vibrato, and the sustain on each note dies long before it should. Don't get me wrong, I really do feel like this arrangement is amazing. It's a beautiful reinterpretation of these sources, the time changes are fun, and the material itself never gets boring. But we've got some mix issues, some mechanization, and some flat samples and performances that keep this below the bar for me. I disagree with other judges that a good arrangement makes up for a lack of detail in the mixing - this track has potential to me, but it's not there yet. NO (please resubmit!)

I'm having a hard time with this one. I'm all about a slow burn and being patient with a piece of music. While I don't really think this needed to be over 6 minutes long, and a significant amount could have been cut without affecting the overall track, it wasn't a dealbreaker for me. My big issue is I feel like I'm missing half the frequency spectrum. The only thing we have going on in the low end for a huge portion of the track is the kick drum. We occasionally have some low synth/strings but they fall out repeatedly, keeping large portions of the mix in the top half of the hearable range. Given the bladerunner-esque soundscape we're dealing with, I feel like there's a lot of missed potential in making this sound full. Given that the piece IS so long, and we have to live in these sections for large amounts of time, to me it pushes it below the bar. Suggestions from me are all in the EQ - the piece just needs more information, and it can be done by either not cutting what you've cut, or adding things in. You can spread out the instrumentation in the stereo field, which then gives you more headroom to restore some of its information without making mastering a mess. NO(Resub)