XPRTNovice

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

Oh man I LOVE the voices at the beginning, and the guitars leading up to that first big drop. Fantastic opening! Right away though at :23-:29, there's something happening (I think it is in the guitars, but I can't be clear because of the nature of the critique) that is muddying up the mix. It could be the way the bass is interacting with the guitar, but I hear some major mud around 300hz that goes away around :29. This makes me think that it's the way the bass is interacting with either the kick or the guitar, both of which drop out there. That problem does not persist at :35 when we come back in, so just take a look at that specific section. Five seconds of EQ automation will fix that right away once you isolate what is causing the problem. I hear it again in the :45 second realm. As I get more and more through the piece, I am convinced that it's the bass that's the problem, and you just need to carve a little space out of it EQ-wise. It becomes persistent around 1:05. This is my single biggest, and really only beef with production, but it's a big one and I think needs to be addressed before it goes to the site. But it really is a very, very quick fix. Two guitar mixing suggestions - the solo at 1:45 is great - bring it out! It really needs to come out and sparkle because it's REALLY good, and also the harmonized arpeggios that come right before the sample THAT THOU SHALT REMOVE at 2:03 are suuuuper good. That stuff should be front and center. The vocals throughout the track are great, honestly, and the way you use them to end the piece is fantastic. There's ONE note in the harmonization at 2:44 that needs some tuning, and the end could have been tighter. Normally I wouldn't critique it because it's live, and human, but the rest of the song is so very tight that it sounds out of place. Arrangement...I love it. I really do. You capture the feeling of the piece, do different things with it. Great job. This low-end mixing issue is the only reason I am NOing the track and you should definitely take another quick pass at it and resubmit, because after that for me it's an easy, easy pass. NO (resubmit)

What a fun source, and a fun take on it! Right away, the drums come out to me as needing some production help. I agree with Prophetik in that there doesn't seem to be much in there, from a lack of reverb, to a lack of compression, to just being sort of too forward in the mix and not meshing with the rest of it. I hear the kick and snare right up in my face, but I barely hear the cymbal work. The performance of them is actually quite good IMO, and has some nice variation, but needs help production wise to make all that good work not go to waste (like when you're following the samba beat of the acoustic guitar at 2:30 ish, which was super cool). The guitar leads that come in at :35 don't sound like they're in synch timing wise, though they lock in after a few seconds, and the mixing makes me lose track of which is playing what. My real beef is there are a LOT of guitars happening here, and they need to be set apart somehow so they don't confuse each other. This problem is persistent throughout the piece; having so many guitars can be effective, but if you're gonna do that you need to have a surgeon's precision when you're mixing them, which isn't happening here. The result is something that sounds muddy and confusing, with the listener unable to focus on any one thing, so they focus on nothing. The guitar melody at 1:20 gets lost - it's way too far back in the mix and gets eaten up by the arp guitar. Again, a production issue, but also an arrangement issue from an instrumentation standpoint. Those two guitars sound very similar, so having them compete for brainspace is disadvantageous to your objective. Arrangement wise, I think it's fine, but could benefit from some variations. This felt a little more like the structure of a jazz head (i.e. you play the melody a bit, then noodle, then play the melody a bit, then noodle) than a cohesive story, but the noodling was just sort of a repetition of the melody on a different guitar. NO

Ah one of my favorites. As is typical of Rebecca, the arrangement is lovely with lots of creative, interesting interpretations of the music. I particularly like the harmonization at 1:25 and the switch to minor thereafter. Lots of great moments, including the ending. Production wise, it leaves something to be desired. Harp in the beginning needs a bass trim and to come back in the mix; it muddied up the melody for me. The piano felt mechanical and plunking with a real lack of humanization; by the time 1:45 rolled around I was noticing it constantly. The dynamics don't really seem to seem to change throughout the piece, which creates ear-fatigue for me. There are plenty of places where there are emotional swells and ebbs that would really benefit from some dynamic adjustments. The strings seem to achieve it, but the rest of the instruments need some TLC from a production standpoint. That goes the same for tempo; with so much expression in the arrangement, I feel like there needed to be expression in the production as well to take this from good to great, but I felt like we were on a train from the beginning to the end going along at a very consistent, maybe even a little too fast of a tempo, and the emotion of the arrangement gets lost in it. I felt like I was being pushed along, not led along or coaxed along, and with a piece like this I think the latter is more important. I keep thinking I hear a wrong note in the piano at 2:48 ish? Or a glissando that just isn't mixed in enough? Again, a production issue. I think this one needs to go back to the production phase to really make it shine. I am loathe to give it a no, but in this case I think it is not ready for the site and could really be made to stand out with a little bit more care toward humanization and production in particular. The arrangement is outstanding as usual. NO

Hey don't huehuehate on yourself for not having a concept be original. You don't need to reinvent the wheel every time you want to reimagine a song, and this is a great remix. Was nodding my head within the first 30 seconds; the arps in the background that are slightly off-beat (off-swing?) really add that weirdly classic bit of anxiety into lo-fi where you never quite feel settled but you're okay with it. I had no issue waiting until 1:09 for the bass to drop, I felt snuggled by the rest of it and patient. You could easily, EASILY have told me that I was listening to Tenno, here, and I would have believed you. Your mixing is on point, the instrumentation is on point, your arrangement has good peaks and troughs that keep me interested but also don't force me to pay attention too much. That's lo-fi, baby. Music to chill/relax/farm stuff to. Nothing stuck out to me from a production standpoint. It really does sound professionally produced and well done. I think, maybe, that the arrangement could have been a touch shorter, if only because I felt myself drifting around the 3:30 mark, but that could have been a function of the fact that the chord doesn't change for almost a full minute starting at 2:40. I don't know much lo-fi that extends to a full 5 minutes, you know? I felt like you had expressed most of what you wanted to do by the time 4 minutes rolled around, and the rest was a recap, but because the mix itself and the content was so good, I wasn't exactly upset by it. Just something I noticed. Overall, fantastic job. YES

Okay, okay! I really dig the feel of this, a lot. It's chill, but hard-hitting. A nice mix of tones, well balanced, well mixed. The arrangement is straight-ahead, but still moves through different parts of a story while keeping things interesting, varied, and tight. I really don't have a whole lot to say about this one, but I will jump on the idea here that Prophetik mentioned about the leads doing some damage to the overall story of the mix. The lead that comes in at :58 is too wet for me, it muddies the excellent soundscape you have going on, and I think could probably benefit from less reverb to keep the rest of it gelling nicely. I reached for the volume knob pretty fast because it was just too much BUT I LOVE the contrast of how wet it is vs the rest of it. It's just too heavy on the one side of the scale for that brief moment. You can still achieve that wonderful sense of relief when the lead dissipates with less. The lead that comes in at about 4:00 needs to be pulled back just slightly in my opinion - it's a very small adjustment, but it was distracting when it came out and I think you're so well tuned-in to the rest of the mix that you want to keep that vibe going ad smoothly as you can. I didn't have any issues with the repetition in this one because there were layers to it all, and the source itself is pretty minimalistic. I think this is a great interpretation of it. The disintegrating ending was also really great Nice job! YES

Honestly this arrangement is fire. What a cool source tune, and you treat it well. I love the interaction of the synth with the faux-brass, and you spend enough time both on and off the melody to make a relatively short source sound not-repetitive. The slowdown is just delicious, especially when it very unexpectedly goes back into the speedup. Love the little breakdown at 2:20, but after that I feel like we are really missing some bass, because it sounds (to my ear) that you have your bass synth jumping up like 1-2 octaves for the next section all the way to 3:05. I enjoyed it for a second, but after more than a few seconds of listening to it my ear was clearly missing something. I might suggest that you double that bass instrument, because I think the high-octave bassline is very effective, but it needs some support. And the ending is great, I wasn't bothered by the length of it at all. I don't necessarily jive with the production critiques that are being made on the piece; I don't hear boominess in my setup (and I even complained enough about there not being enough). The first second of the piece is a little bass heavy, but since it sweeps out right away with the filter, it didn't really bother me. The only time I felt like the bass was a little much was right before the break/drop at :42, and even then it wasn't that offensive to my ears. Great job! YES

Hi Rebecca! Thanks for submitting. It's a cool, wandering melody that you translated into something that nicely envelopes the atmosphere/ambient nature of it while keeping it interesting to listen to. In fact, my only real critique with the arrangement is that it might be a little *too* interesting; there's too much going on that doesn't seem to jive with itself. There were many times where I felt I couldn't find the center because there were so many different things going on in different instruments...which is sort of like the source, but it was hard for me to feel like the arrangement was a cohesive story/piece. It all starts to feel a little bit like a bridge, or an intro, instead of a piece that has a beginning middle and end. The source, despite being ambient, has a strong melody and direction, but this arrangement is too far on the ambient side for me to feel like a complete piece. The violin used in the melody at :48 ish is pulling my ear, I think, because it keeps swelling in exactly the same way with every note of the melody. I would replace it with a steady legato, otherwise it almost feels like its pumping/breathing and it was distracting. When the bass comes in at 1:40 ish, it booms to me and is too loud. Adjusting this may give you more headroom to raise the overall volume. I might even suggest a frequency cut if you want to keep the presence, but I actually just think the bass doesn't fit in the mix due to the volume. The volume is the biggest production issue for me. I had to crank my speakers to listen to this; it needs a good compression and mastering pass, which I know you know how to do. The whole track is just way too quiet. NO

The buildup is really great, I love the ambiance and the delayed/multiple drops that lead into a 2 nd build phase at 103. All the introduction production is very solid, I don’t hear anything that tickles my ear, and then when Dracula’s Castle comes in at 1:25 it’s very satisfying. It makes it feel like one cohesive melody between the two sources. The melody really never gets lost, which is easy to do in a dance arrangement like this, and the countermelodies stand out nicely. Really love the wubs at 2:39, they keep the arrangement interested. I never found myself getting bored at all here. The short interlude 3:25 is excellent and very satisfying to the ear, but I couldn’t quite tell what was supposed to come out there, if it was a bridge you wrote, or if there was still some of the source left in there. Overall, this aces production and source usage. To offer a little bit of feedback: The part leading to that second drop at 3:26 loses some clarity for me; I am not sure what I am supposed to listen to because there is that saw lead that's taking over, but it's clearly not the melody. I feel like I hear something in the background that should be coming forward. I could use a little more volume, maybe literally like 2db, of the lead in the first section (1:36 ish). The arrangement is a *touch* on the repetitive side, but for a dance piece it didn't stand out enough that I'd feel comfortable really nitpicking at it. Great job! YES

Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately there is not sufficient modification of the source to pass OCR’s standards for submission. In this case, the source material is indeed “identifiable and dominant” but the arrangement is not “substantial and original.” There are very few, if any, departures from the source material, with the exception of the key. It is approximately the same BPM as the original, and doesn’t change sections or involve any interpretation other than changes in instrumentation. This falls more cleanly into the definition of a “cover” than an “arrangement” or remix, and doesn’t fall into the spirit of what OCR has on the site. I encourage you to look at the submission guidelines and spend some time reviewing posted remixes alongside their sources, and noticing how vast the interpretations can be while still strongly representing the source. Production-wise, this sounds like a portion of it would be an excellent dreamy intro into an arrangement (adding a sweep filter as it rises into some kind of drop, for example), but with the dramatic amount of frequencies cut out (you mentioned high and low cut in your letter) it comes across like an unfinished piece of music, and lacks any body – I kept expecting a drop to come where the rest of the track comes in, but it never did. I would be interested in hearing what exactly you cut out; you might play with reducing the dramatic EQ bit by bit and also listening to other songs of the same target style at the same time (“reference mixing”) and see if you can’t get the sounds to start to match up. Training your ear takes time, and reference mixing will help you start to understand what happens when you move what lever. NO

I cannot tell you how much I love this idea. We do need more polka. But the production on this needs a lot of improvement before it can pass OCR’s standards, and the arrangement, though brilliant, could use some expansion. There doesn’t seem to be any volume/velocity variation between any of the notes, which creates a flat mix that’s very much in your face, and lacks nuance. The ears fatigue quickly under that kind of pressure. The samples used don’t seem to have much articulation options, which made it so there isn’t any legato in the clarinet or any other instrument, and the drums are at a constant, loud volume. I empathize that these sorts of arrangements are EXCEEDINGLY difficult to do with samples. You have your work cut out for you here. The solution for me when I started was to play the instrument, but that's not available for everyone. What IS available is a healthy dose of collaboration; we have a giant community of instrumentalists who are ready and eager to lend their skills to tracks. That's not always convenient or quick, so what I'd recommend is really just doing some google searching and exploring sample libraries, many of which are free, that can supply some insight. It's a question of humanization, which is hard but the resources available in modern day music making is endless and inexpensive. All that being said – the arrangement is astounding though a touch on the short side, especially when you consider that you have two sources that you can work with. Your instrumentation is spot on, and I think it really does create the character that you want to create with it, but there are more opportunities to incorporate the sources (particularly the Kirkhope piece) into the arrangement and extend it to tell a bit more of a story. That will also help with the in-your- face issue I described before; some variations in the arrangement will give you opportunities to play with more dynamics. If you go listen to a bunch of Polka, you’ll notice that although some is high-intensity like this, it often weaves back and forth. Please, please don’t quit on this – bring this sort of goofy energy to OCR. NO - RESUBMIT