XPRTNovice

Man MQ just doesn't get enough love. This Bossa version of this is fantastic right out the gate, with a really great groove, good mixing, good production, and excellent performance. Agree with MindWanderer that this probably could have been a direct post. Really love that guitar tone too and the solo.

Uh, this is awesome?! Like, really, realyl, really good. It's mixed well, the performance is an easy ace, the production is great. The arrangement is fantastic. I...just don't hear the source. I don't think on OCR we should have to go and study it in order to make it recognizeable; I understand the remixers intent in slowing down the source and creating something new with it, I've done it myself, but in a case like this there's nothing that tells me on even multiple listens that we're dealing with the source material. But what a great song. NO

Long story short - I love this, but it's not enough of itself. Aside from a keychange and adding some drums, this seems to me to be more of an sound-upgrade of the source than an arrangement. The arp carries for almost the entire tune with barely a few moments rest. But I WILL say that the production is fantastic. I think it's well balanced, and the patches used are great. The space is filled nicely both from a L/R perspective and an EQ perspective; it's full and rich and well done. There's just not enough arrangement here for me to think this is passable. NO

Right away at 0:01 I am hearing the producers hand in a big way in the compression on the lead guitars; I hear them pumping and breathing in a distracting way, even though the performance is good. You don't need it there; the guitars are alone and unafraid and well played, and I don't think you need to squash them. Let them sing! Overall though, I am missing a huge part of the sound spectrum. This track sounds very mid-heavy in almost all the places; I don't get a lot of support from the bass and the kick drum to round out the mix, and the rhythm guitars are also pretty heavy in the mid freqs. This makes the lead synth, although well-played, sound even more intense because we already have so much going on. The flute needs some automation when it comes in at 1:40 - we only get half the phrases because the flute dips down into its lower register and ther. And then at 1:55 we start to get some really messy playing in there; the performance needs to be cleaned up. My ear is really fatigued by 2:15 because I really feel like I've just been listening to mid&high for most of the piece. The timing at 2:40 falls apart at my ear as well between the guitars and drums. That performance needs to be cleaned up IMO. Arrangement is really cool, there are really fun ideas, and we've got some really good talented performances in there, but the combination of timing/performance issues in those spots and me missing half the frequency spectrum is going to no this one for me. NO

Really creative interpretation of these two sources; you weave in and out of them with expertise, keep the listener interested, and avoid a lot of needless repetition. There's so much good stuff going on in here. Man that lead at 1:33 is fantastic. I would encourage you to bring it out when it gets into the lower register through some automation, because there were a few seconds where I lost it in the mix, but that's a nitpick. My biggest issue by far with this piece is the drums. I think I understand what you're going for here, but I think you're going about it in the wrong way, as has been iterated a few times by other judges here. Instead of having a "lo-fi drums" feel, what I hear instead is more of a "badly-recorded-drums" feel, which I know is not the reality nor the intent. Because everything else going on sounds so crisp and clean, and NOT necessarily lo-fi, it really accentuates the feeling of the drums not being up to snuff. It's bad enough that it really hurt my enjoyment of the piece overall and was distracting. But the good news is that I loved literally everything else, and when I say "resubmit" here all I am saying is "fix the drums." Everything else was pretty perfect to my ear. NO (resubmit)

Honestly, I was ready to NO this piece as soon as I heard it because of the drum mixing, from 0:01. It's really janky; the kick drum is very difficult to listen to, and the rest of the piece is buried by it. The spacial mixing seems okay, but I can't even get a good sense of what the piece really sounds like in a lot of places because the drums muddy the whole thing. That being said, christ alive the performances are amazing and the arrangement is off the hook. Timing is tight. Drum performance is amazing. The Yoshi Story ode was incredible. Whistling is impressive. The "Last Lap" motif is fun as hell. I'm like, really sad that I'm going to NO this based on the mixing, but to me it's a hard pass. NO

Damn this is like...lo-fi synthwave and I am here for it. Very cool choices made on the genre and direction of this piece. If I was going to get a little nitpicky, I'd love to hear a little bit more bottom end overall (but especially at 2:10). We had some bassy stuff leading up, and then it kind of drops out for me. Like, I want to be sitting in a big fat 80hz cloud for this piece, because it deserves it, and I think it would make the lo-fi ness stand out in a way that would be goosebumpy. I'd also say the high end instrument at the VERY beginning is just a touch too harsh and could come back in the mix. It sounds better when other instruments come in at 25 or so, but when it starts out it's abrasive on the ears. The kicks need a touch of EQ trimming maybe at like 150hz, that might give you some room there to make it sound fuller on the bottom. I think it's interesting in the way that I'm contrasting with some of the other judges on this one (like Darksim told you to turn the lows down and I'm telling you to make me a figurative cloud) and I think the weird sounds are actuallly beneficial to this piece. but one place I do agree is that I would have loved a bigger ending. This piece is SO unique and SO epic, that I think it deserved more than just a dropout. But that's your choice. Source...I dunno. I'm fine with source usage on this one. It was clear to me that this was an arrangement of the tune, and we benefit from the variations and departures in a way that enriches the original. YES

Man what a cool feel you've got going on here. I love the guitar performance and the soundscape you've chosen. I recommend taking just a sliiiight cut on the high freqs of the castanets, either with multiband compression or just simple EQ. They pop out of the mix too much; they're a perfect spice for the dish, but you've got too much of it on there. The TRUMPET solo. YES. Fits perfectly, performed well, mixed in great. When the solos start trading (organ, guitar, etc) I would say bring them out (particularly the organ - the patch you chose there for the organ kind of oscillates back into the background too much and I lose its presence in the main stage of the piece). Nothing dramatic, just a db or 2 to give the listener the obvious impression that the performers are standing out from each other. I'm on the fence here when it comes to the overall sound of the production. I feel like you've got everything in the right place, and mostly at the right volumes except for what I've called out above, but there's something about the mixing of the piece that's holding it back. As some other judges have said, there's a 250hz muddiness that can be pulled out in the bass guitar, which will then give you room to add in some other things and bolster other sounds. You've got so much room on the sides as Chimp mentioned, so USE that part of the soundscape. I am loathe to NO this, but I don't want you to take it as discouraging; I'm begging you to resubmit becuase this piece has incredible potentital with just a little more attention to detail in the mixing. GREAT job. NO (resubmit or else)

Some real guts taking on a source that's essentially four notes repeated over 45 seconds, haha! Intro's got some real power and groove, it put me in the mood right away, and the first drop at :45 was satisfying. Mix overall is top knotch; really kept all this power on a tight leash without letting it get out of control, which is impressive. Great job there. By 2:30, I'm starting to experience some ear fatigue. I feel like I've been listening to a lot of the same. We get our first sort of break at 3:00, but we fall right back into it pretty quickly and I feel like I'm back at the beginning of the piece. I'm going to concede here and say that the piece is great, the mixing is great, overall there is so much great stuff going on here, but it needs a haircut. If you're going to keep it this length (which I don't think anyone recommends) you're going to need to inject some serious innovation into it and really mix up the arrangement. But, I would save yourself the trouble and find the repetitive spots, cut them out, and I bet this piece will sit very nicely at about 4:00. And I might revisit the ending; rather than have it just sort of drop out, you might take the suggestions here about innovating on the source and some up with something creative and interesting. Throw the source out the window for 20 seconds and really blow it out. NO (resubmit!)

Okay, there's lots happening here, but ultimately a great arrangement foiled by mixing issues. :28 threw me; this doesn't feel tightly timed at all and really threw off a great intro. We fall back in at :45, but I feel like I hear more timing issues coming up now and then with the drums. The high guitar lead is too loud throughout this first section, as are the high hat sizzles; I'm hearing a lot of high end not supported by what should be some big fat low ends in this genre. The bottom kind of falls out of the mix around 1:51, almost like it was a totally different track. I know we're sort of switching feelings, but it sounds sparse; all of that stuff can come up to meet us when the rest of the metal part drops out. Mixing issues persist 2:20, we hear the strings way too loud over the guitar lead, which now gets buried in the background. Synth(violin) lead at 3:17 is totally buried, I can't figure out what is being played there enough to even judge the performance. The dump-everything-in-there drum fills at 3:30 kicked me out of the piece, it didn't seem like it fit there at all and I couldn't really hear what else was going on in the mix because it was just so chaotic and above everything else. A fantastic arrangement though; your interpretation of the source is innovative and interesting and the instrumentation is fun, but there are a lot of mixing issues here in addition to the timing mess at the beginning that are making this a no from me. I was left a little bit wanting at the end, but adding some of that low end back into the mix might help this; it felt like it was supposed to go out with a bang, but the bang was a little more like a fizzle. NO (resubmit)

Hi, I'm XPRTNovice, and I approve this VA. I think the performance is fine as it is, and it's on par with just about anything you'd hear on Audible. It's an internal question as "do we publish audiobooks on this website" because this is essentially what this is, but that's a question I defer to staff discussion. The problem I have with this track is the mixing, and there's a lot to talk about. First, the plate reverb on the VO is distracting and unnecessary. A clean, well-recorded VO will sound better in this. That's actually my only feedback on the VO - take off the verb and make it clean, front and center. The guitar is overcompressed and muddy and way too far forward when mixed with the other instruments. Almost all of the performances have timing issues, where the performers do not stay on tempo, which creates a chaotic sound. The plate reverb is making the timing issues sound worse, because the reverb itself is just so FAST that it sounds like they're playing even more out of time. I can't tell if any of the horn players are supposed to be playing even eights, or if they're sixteenths and dotted eights, or some other triplet syncopation. Mandolin is out of time, the guitar steps on the horns. From what I can hear, the horns sound like they're well recorded, though, and the performances seem solid in ISOLATION, but together it's too messy to pass the bar. I don't think an argument can be made that this is not acceptable because the non-musical elements are not "source." The background track is entirely a remix, and could stand as a remix of this music on its own without the VA. NO

Haha, this is such a funky source. It was nice to listen to it before listening to the remix and get refreshed to this great tune. However, when I flipped off the source, and flipped on the remix, my brain immediately went to "cover" and not to "remix" or interpretation. The instrumentation was really close, the tempo was almost exact, the key was the same, and I'm not hearing a whole lot of variation throughout the piece. The production on this one is great, although that hi-hat could maybe be toned down a touch, but I have to NO this one based on the lack of interpretation and variation from the source. I really enjoyed the 80s style drums you've got in there, and I think they were mixed well. The piece has body, you clearly know what you're doing! Keep it up and I'd love to hear more from you in the future. NO

Man this source is weird. And yet you managed to make the remix even weirder. Great job. I enjoyed the uncomfortable slowdown at 1:57, and all the strange dissonances that you introduced throughout. I really did enjoy the interpretation. However, I have to agree with the other judges here that the lead comes off bland, if not bordering on boring, and some variation and interpretation on that could really give the piece something more. Countermelodies, a back-and-forth with other instrumentation, or simply just changing what's playing the lead might make it pop more. You have lots of options here. Overall, I found the production to be pretty solid from a technically-correct standpoint, but sort of lacking in the presence department. The whole mix sounds flat to me, lacking the depth that I think is available to you with a source, and an arrangement, and instrumentation like you have here. It won't take you long to really make this shine, and I think you'll be happy that you do before we post it to the site. NO (borderline, resubmit please)

Honestly, I opened the source tune and was like "oh THESE GUYS have some GUTS trying this" But you ABSOLUTELY NAILED THIS. It's an incredibly done arrangement. Like, really, really, really, really good. The emotion, the performances, the instrumentation, the interpretation, the sheer EFFORT of it all is phenomenal. The huge problem, and one for which I am putting up a flag, is actual digitial distortion - like all over the piece. You slam 0dB a ton, and it's very noticeable. :45, 1:15, the entrance at 2:20. It's really kind of everywhere. This needs a careful production pass where we bring this back down so that the real gem of this can shine. But other than that, holy shit this is great you guys. YES (conditional)

There is a lot of great stuff in here - I acually love the interpretation of the source. It's a repetitive source, but you managed to make it feel more like a journey through the woods, and less like a jog on a treadmill, which the original did for me. That little break at 2:45 and 2:55 were lovely, I love the use of silence. I have a couple of critiques, though. The bassoon (and occasionally bass clarinet) is really jarring. It sticks out, comes off flat with no vibrato or any real dynamic adjustments within lines. I don't hear any place in the piece where I thought the bassoon blended well, and it throws you out of the magic of it. Some of the releases, particularly in the strings in the beginning and the ending, and the oboe in the beginning as well, need some work. To me they sound cutoff and stilted. This is the same with the tremolos in the low strings just before 1:00. The way they end and come back in, rather than sounding smooth, almost gives the idea of a sidechain compression effect, which I don't think works for this piece. This is a really beautiful piece with a wonderful atmosphere, but it needs some attention to detail on a couple of the instruments before I'd give it a pass. NO (resubmit)

Ooooh, I like the opening. The sound palate you used here is really fun. And I immediatley know I'm in the source, while immediately knowing it's an interpretation and not a cover. I love the instrumentation in the intro. I feel like I'm catching a little bit of overcompression at 2:00, which makes the song sound like it's pumping and breathing a little bit to me, which took away from the overall soundscape of the piece. If you could find a way to make that a little more subtle, while keeping the piece as full and beautiful as it is, I think it would benefit your overall presentation. But then at 3:01, the compression becomes an active part of the piece in that wonderful side-chainy way. I still think it's too much here, but that's a taste thing. This drop at 3:00 was great, I loved it. Things are still sounding full and not overbearing, you've got lots of instruments doing lots of things and still it doesn't sound too busy. I have to admit, when I saw a 5:36 song on a source that was about 30 seconds, I was a little skeptical. But man, there are some really great variations and flourishes in there. When that koto came in at 1:28 ish, I got goosebumps. This track is great, and it doesn't stop changing or morphing until the very end. Well done. YES

Ahaaaa this groove is great, and the interpretation is fun as hell. I love the style, and as always your production is phenomenal. What a great take on this source. But I do have to admit I agree with everyone else's opinion on this one. There's opportunities for variation that weren't capitalized on throughout the piece, resulting in a lot of what seems like copy/paste, to the point where I feel like I can see the patterns in the waveform as I'm listening to it now. I don't mind the ending being abrupt, as you pick apart the music before you get there, resulting in a sort of deconstructed dropoff, which I don't think is counter to the style at all. I don't think it's far off, but it needs some variation, or some trimming. NO

My dude, this thing slaps. Groove is awesome, the insturmentation is fun and great, I love that honky tonky piano. Bassline really makes the whole thing sit wonderfully together. Your mixing is on point, and the song is fun as hell to listen to with good variation over all and the ending made me smile. My only critique - The drums aren't my favorite, and probably could have used a little more attention througout for sure, but there's something to be said for that lending itself to the way that these sort of 70s groove tracks sounded, so it's not enough for me to NO it. I would go over this again, and maybe at least change the dynamics when you go from section to section, or anything to make it less set-and-forget. I think this could benefit from live drums, and we have so many talented people in our community that you could reach out to. But that's not totally necessary; what I think probably is necessary is at least spicing up the drum track with something other than the occasional single-hit snare fill. It gets really repetitive. YES

This had me nodding my head; I think it's a great groove on a great song and there's a lot going for it. I really enjoyed the arrangement, all the drops, I liked how committed it was to the source while adding a lot of different flourishes. It's a little on the short side, barely crossing the 2 minute mark. This genre isn't my particular forte from a production standpoint, but I have to agree that it needs another pass to make sure we're not clipping here just from a basic engineering perspective. There's a lot of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic complexity in here that make me want to hear more, which is kind of why I was disappointed to see that the track was so short. I'm interested to hear more of what you do, and just think this needs a basic mastering pass to make it clean. YES (CONDITIONAL)

Man, there is just so much richness happening here. The production quality is really fantastic; I love what you are doing with the vocals, and I love how everyting sits in the mix. However, I was jarred at the very beginning thinking I was just listening to the game soundtrack. The instrumentation is almost exact, and even within the instrumentation the sound patches sound like you were going for something as close to the original as possible, at the same tempo, in the same key, in the same style. To me, this flunks the interpretation test. At 1:50, we add some different instrument, some fun drums, and an oboe, but nothing else really changes, and I'm not even really sensing much interpretative energy, except in small fits and starts. I found myself constnatly thinking "oh...okay OKAY HERE WE Go...oh." and we return to essentially a cover of the piece with some interesting flourishes on top of it. Then we get to 3:15, and the earth opens up and swallows us. We completely depart from the piece and have a very "Mitsuda's Ladies" vocal palatte that just sort of takes the piece and throws it out the window. It sounds like an entirely different track, so much so that I had to rewind to the beginning because I was asking myself if we even ended in the same key we started in for resolution's sake (we did.) While in isolation, the section is cool, I don't feel like it fit the arrangement at all. Overall though, I don't think this is interpretive enough to fit the bill. But man, your mixing is wonderful, the production is so clean, and the minor layers you DID add were really well done - I just don't think it's enough to pass muster here, and then we have a total collapse of the piece for the last minute that didn't really seem to jive with what was happening, arrangement wise. I know it might seem to be contradicting for me to be like "You need to depart from the source moreeeee WOAH not that much" but they really do feel almost like two distinct pieces that don't complement each other. NO

Man, super cool that you got your inspiration for this one from a painting. Love art informing art. I feel like maybe I'm biased toward this mix because I've been listening to a lot of more soundscapy stuff lately in my personal life, and I love what one can do with sounds when you depart from the rules of what a piece of music really needs to be. Personally, I don't find the softness of this mix to be jarring at all. Arrangement wise, I do think we're sticking a little close to the original here and kind of palatte swapping some of the instruments, with the notable exception being the piano solo at at 1:10 which was absolutely lovely. But it's not SO close to the source that I'm going to flag it as being not the right thing for the site. I think you've tastefully reimagined a lot of what's happening in the source, but really putting it in a different world. At 2:00 I was really hoping for some bottom to come back into the mix, and I think it goes too long without it, which is where I started kind of crinkling my forehead at the soundscape. We don't get thebottom back for almost 40 seconds, and when we do get it back it's so subtle that I almost didn't notice it at first. That's a good opportunity for the climax of the piece, and we can have something so nice and full there. I am unified, however, with everyone else's assessment of the ending. Regardless of your departure from convention, I still think it's important to tell a complete story within a piece if you're going to have an emotional impact on the audience, and the lack of an ending here really takes all the hard work you put into the first 3:40 of the piece and minimizes its result. Ultimately, I love where you're going with this. It's a wonderful idea, and mostly well executed, but it needs some things (most notably an ending) before I think this can stand on its own. NO (resubmit)

Opening guitars, bass, and kick drum bring us to a powerful opening where my head is nodding at :20. However, the guitar lead is buried behind that great growling stuff, and it remains buried until the instruments drop out at :53. It's very well performed, though! And the stuff going on at :55 is great with the instruments dropping out. But then the second lead at :56 is very jarring; I'm not sure what happened there, but it's absolutely competing with the first lead, and therefore muddying up the harmonies. It sounds like it might be mixed completely different from the first lead guitar, or recorded in a lower-quality setting? It's hard for me to give good feedback on that since it's all so smushed together. We don't get any relief from that noise competition until 1:09, which is a long time to tolerate not understanding what is going on melodically. We seem to have a similar problem with the melody at 1:15. The synth/string melody get buried in the chonk-a-chonk of the rhythm guitars and that driving kick drum, which by 1:30 I was re-thinking whether or not I liked it that punchy just because it was killing other things in the mix. The ripping, well performed solo at 1:40 doesn't have the same problem, although not by much. Lead guitar, again, at 2:13 is buried for me. The content is phenomenal, so bring that shit out! It's worth having a seat at the front of the concert. Indeed by 2:40, I was really not digging the kick drum anymore. The snare and kick are too punchy, and on multiple listen-throughs, I started to understand that part of the problem is that you have space competition from L-R within anything that's not a rhythm guitar. All the synth and all the leads seem to be competing in the same space, which may lead to why I was so doubtful about hearing the melody. Ending at 2:50 was stellar. Really liked it. Arrangement wise I think this one is totally fine, but I really need more of those lead instrument parts before I think this can pass muster. It's not a 2 hour fix, but it's not a 5 minute fix either; bring those leads out, and see what you can do with that kick drum, and I think this is a great mix. NO (please resubmit)

We start out nice, with the piano and drums tightly together with a well-mixed bassline, although I will say that it feels a little weak overall. The opening piano is very warm, which works later in the arrangement when it's covered by other instruments, but in the beginning it just feels a little fuzzy, by which I mean it's very mid and mid-low heavy, and we lack any sparkle at the top of the instrumentation. That's easily fixed, but there's a lot more going on with this mix that needs attention. Overall rhythmic synergy is on shaky ground; if the piano was humanly performed, which my gut tells me it was, there are times where it falls out of time with the drums, which also, in their own way, feel slightly out of time. I feel it really start to get out of time at :35, and it doesn't fall back into what I feel like is a groove for 20-30 seconds after that. Tasteful quantization could help with this. The synth at :50 is intensely jarring. It doesn't seem to go with the arrangement, and it's way too loud in the mix, dead center, and loosely performed. The guitar at 1:43 is loud, and dead-center, competing with the synth. The drums are also seemingly dead-center, from what I can hear, or very minimally spread, which competes with everything. There's so much L-R space available in this mix, especially since the instrumentation is so sparse, that spreading out the kit is absolutely necessary. I wasn't really able to get past the performance and the mixing to get too far into the arrangement critique, but I agree with Larry's comment above that it's generally moot by the time you look at all of the other things going on with the mix. NO

Hoo boy, have a lot of guts picking a source that's essentially 2 measures long and consists of a single bassline. Granted, it's a great bassline. 1:00 is absolutely the high point of the mix. There's so much great stuff going on with the guitars, which are well performed and the hardpan gives the song some dimension. However, that's really the only high point of the song for me; although the source is sparse, I don't think from an arrangement standpoint you needed to be as faithful to it as you were, which results in massive ear fatigue by the time the short song is over. The guitars at 1:00 were great, but the dopamine of that wore off quickly and I just found myself sort of listening to the same two measures over and over again. So yes, you do stick to the source, and yes, you do make it your own, but the over reliance on the bassline (and the fact that never, once, stops in the entire arrangement) make it difficult to listen to. Changing keys, modulating the bassline, breaking up the rhythm, double time, half time - the possibilities are endless with this to make it a more engaging and interesting mix to listen to. You might even consider grabbing a second source from the game and having a small interlude, if you run out of ideas, but even that's not totally necessary. However, if you're going to really take a go at this, the production also needs to carry it better than it's doing. The overal mix is too quiet for me, the drums are thin and lack some body, particularly in the kick drum, and the overall the mix is mid-heavy. It's thin on the bottom and thin on the top, and the heavy Van Halen-esque headbanging vibe doesn't come out strong enough without it being more powerful. More body in the drums and guitar would have helped with this; the bass is fine as it is, I think. A brave attempt at taking a paper-thin source and making a banger out of it, with admirable effort, but I think it needs some effort from both an arrangement and a production standpoint. NO (resubmit)

Man what a gem source. I'm not familiar with this at all, but this original slaps. I actually really like the slightly discordant harmonies happening in the beginning, which seem to mix a kind of strange major and minor from two different keys? I'm not sure what's going on there, but I like it. The drum entrance is nice and clean, smooth mixing all around as we get to the first minute mark. I could stand for the melody to come out just a bit at around 1:02, it seems to drop out for a second and left me wondering where it went, but then comes back in strong at 1:10. The build happening at 1:35 is great; I love the vocal SFX, the slowdown in tempo, and the not so subtle reminder that this is from an actual horror game so let's get a little scary. The breakdown and buildup at 2:10 gets a little muddy around the 250hz mark to my ears, but it's not so much that I'd dock it points. But if you were going at this with a scalpel, that's where I would carve out some of that boxy/boomy EQ and see if you can just get that a little cleaner. At 2:50, I run back into the issue that I feel like the melody is being swallowed up by the background; the higher voice in the arrangement falls pray to the wonderful 80s drum and bass remix you've got going on. That only lasts for about 10 seconds though, and then it comes back in just fine. Ending is great, love the ritard and out. Overall great piece with only some minor nitpicks that you might freshen up, but on their own I think they don't make this a NO by any stretch for me. YES