NyxTheShield

Super down for this <3 SoE had always a special part on my heart! I would like to claim either Ebon Keep - Town or if possible, add the dark castle theme to the list of tracks (
)

Haha oopsies, I missed it, the Castle theme then!

Super down for this <3 SoE had always a special part on my heart! I would like to claim either Ebon Keep - Town or if possible, add the dark castle theme to the list of tracks (
)

Is it possible for the internet to have too many Aquatic Ambiance remixes? I propose that it cannot. More importantly: wow. Smooth like polished brass, it breathes easy, and flows freely. The general feel of your piece is consistent, but it's ever changing with with that flute and sax just doing their thing. Very nice, all around. 

Hey man I really like the arrangement for the most part, but I think dropping it down to just the piano at 0:38 breaks the flow in such a short track.  I think keeping the energy a bit more during that section would help the track's progression a lot, and transitioning to Monster Dance right out of Bloody Tears' arpeggiated intro section is a strong structural choice.
I also think the piano isn't carrying the track as a lead instrument.  It sounds pretty dry and fake, and it's mixed pretty far into the background.
The drums also hit me as too loud and compressed.  The cymbals are pumping on a lot of their impacts and they get pretty sizzly at times - heavy compression can be pretty unflattering to cymbal hits.  I really like the timbre of the snare and kick though (with maybe a tad more low end on the latter) and the funky writing works great, I'd just pull the drums down a bit as a whole.
No qualms with the guitar/bass - once the rest of the balance is touched up and the weak lead instrument addressed, I think this'll be a sweet track.
Hope that's helpful!

2ND EVAL PER REQUEST:
I really enjoy the overall improvements made in Version 2 of this tune from a production standpoint. The piece has solid mixing and sound overall, with nice support on the low end. 
I think the lead guitars can come out a lot more around 1:50-2:15. It gets lost in the background for me, particularly because, as Taucer pointed out, the arrangement is relatively conservative. Bringing the guitars more to the front might make the variation pop a bit more. Otherwise, I found my attention drifting away, even though we had some pretty great lead guitar stuff going on. 
It's likely ready for a submission. 

[This is an automatically generated message]
I've reviewed your remix and have set it to Completed status, indicating that I think your remix is ready to be submitted to the Judges Panel. Congratulations!
If you feel like you still need to work on your track and want more feedback, you can change the prefix back to Work-in-Progress and we'll go through the review process again.
If you decide to submit your track, please change the prefix to Submitted after sending your email. Thank you!

I'm going to change the tag on this to "complete," since xprtnovice declared it ready to sub, but I think all three of us are of the opinion that there are still minor tweaks that could improve the mix; feel free to continue tweaking and posting updates, or go ahead and sub it to the judges.

Best of luck!

Title: Placeholder  Source: Donkey Kong Country 1 - Life in the Mines Link to the Track (NEW VERSION):   https://clyp.it/nlwjlbui Link to the Track (First WIP): Description: I haven't submitted anything on OCR in a while, but this track made me feel I should do it. A reimagination of the original in a rock/metal style. I hope you like it! Any feedback is greatly appreciated.  
EDIT BY TAUCER: here's the source:
 

Title: Placeholder  Source: Donkey Kong Country 1 - Life in the Mines Link to the Track (NEW VERSION):   https://clyp.it/nlwjlbui Link to the Track (First WIP): Description: I haven't submitted anything on OCR in a while, but this track made me feel I should do it. A reimagination of the original in a rock/metal style. I hope you like it! Any feedback is greatly appreciated.  
EDIT BY TAUCER: here's the source:
 

Original Title: Forest Interlude
Description: Forest Interlude is one of my favourite tracks ever. DK land is also one of my fav games on the GB, so I decided to make an arrangement based on DK Land II OST Style.
Link to the Track:
 
 

Melodically, it's too conservative, IMO, but if the arrangement were personalized in other ways beyond the adaptation to the chippy instrument set and new (though repetitive) beats, then it would have a chance; that's just my one opinion, but I think a vote on this as is would be "it's a good listen, but too close to the original without some other changes/additions to help it stand apart more from the original"
At 2 1/2 minutes long, i.e. when it's on the shorter side, it's important that the track pretty much always stands apart from the original in some meaningful way; if it were longer, it'd have more time to start conservatively but then branch off into other more creative/interpretive directions. That's just looking at it from the OCR standards perspective.

In any situation, it's a fun de-make, and the chippy sound is awesome.

The louder notes still seem fairly hard-toned; I'm guessing it's still from that velocity response (last I checked, you had it set to "Convex - 50" or something like that). Here's something you could try. It might be kind of a pain, but try holding Ctrl and left-click-drag to select all the notes with velocities of, say, 100~127, and lower them all at once using Alt+Mouse Wheel roll. If you don't have a mouse wheel, try Alt+X and set it so the new velocity magnitudes are a bit lower. Then compare back to the previous version to see if the "playing" sounds softer. Currently it sounds like the "pianist" is sporadically pressing down fairly hard on the keys when playing the louder notes, rather than having the dynamics come naturally from the flow of the other notes. As a result, it doesn't quite feel realistic to me.

Just as a reminder, take off the eval tag once you get an eval. That way, we'll know when you're looking for an evaluation of a new version.
Glad to read you're making progress. I'll try to catch this next time it's on eval, I don't want to spoil it until then.

Went to eat and take a walk to refresh my ears and changed once again the notes on the left hand that seemed weird to me plus I adjusted the timing, so now there is an actual offset between notes. After that i Listened to the song through my  Sennheisers, Earbuds, Cheap Earphones and Notebook Speakers and now I am really happy with the results:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93823550/Papyrus_8.mp3
Thanks guys for your help, I really, really appreciate it.

Left hand sounds much better now, and the right hand is integrated with it better. I liked the tempo change at 0:11. Much better dynamics too. I didn't mention this before, but I like how you incorporated a bit of megalovania into this.
Concerning the right hand, although it sounds better, I think the "pluckiness" problem is happening because attack of the right hand notes sounds much louder than the sustain. Is this is because you've made most of the right hand notes very staccato, and it's just the reverb carrying the notes afterward? If so, I don't think having so many overly-staccato notes fits the overall style of the song, or the left hand.
Some minor things:
The grace notes at 0:28 are a bit painful. I think it would sound better if the grace notes were quieter, or started soft, but led up to the velocity of the actual note. Are the right hand notes at 2:37 octaves? If so, I think the 2nd note should have a lower velocity and maybe have some imperfection, because the pianist would barely have to to play it before having to move their hand. I think the repeated right hand notes at 2:11 and 2:14 get overly loud. I think you could ease off the velocity after the first time of a repeated note in this case.

2 comments after seeing the project in your DAW:
The notes of the right hand all seem to have the same duration, whereas a human player might alternate between staccato and legato, and generally put style into it. For example, if I were playing this on a piano, I might play the first few seconds of the right hand rhythm like this: staccato, legato, legato, legato - staccato, staccato, legato, legato Your note velocities, despite being humanized, and all generally in the same place on your controller area. Why? You have an entire controller area to work with! Give it dynamics! Have the song start off soft, build it up to a forte, make it soft again, etc.

That's updated? For some reason I still hear similar velocities in the right hand. Maybe it'll work better after checking the velocity response.

Better, but yeah, still sounds like "MIDI". The faster phrases are a bit too perfect in terms of the evenness of the velocity magnitudes.
Is it possible to adjust your sample library's velocity response? It might help to smooth out the hardness of the tone overall by making the slope more exponential than logarithmic.

I think this is a really lovely little arrangment. Love the integration of both themes  Something about changing the timing and tempo brings out something really pretty in the songs I wouldn't have suspected. 

I wanted to panel this one because I remember Nyx had this marked as Mod Review but never got any staff feedback, and some of the artist's comments in Workshop thread came across defensive to me, so I felt it appropriate to send this here to give some more feedback.
 
To me, this feels highly conservative and doesn't introduce very much original writing or ideas to the melody, though the few harmonic variations and the overall mashup of the two sources does have some merit by OCR standards. Using the drum loop and the "birdcussion" as a sample is cool, though I feel like you mixed the metallic percussion kind of loud during the transitions - for example, the fill at :38 is startling and out of place, to me. The metallic loop sounds really nice when it's mixed lower and more in the background. The delay effects are well-used and help give the track more texture and movement, I like how you utilized that.
 
Production-wise, the samples and synth design are not very exciting and introduce very little texture to the mix. Experiment with some more interesting synth sound and fills and effects - Skrypnyk and Timaeus gave some really good feedback in the Workshop thread. The arrangement sticks very close to the structure/feel of the original, and there are some sections where you have a lot of countermelodies playing but no lead where it just feels aimless. Sorry to say, this track just isn't working for me on a lot of levels
 
My guess is that, by this point, you've moved onto other projects and I already know you've improved your craft with more recent remixes, but I wanted to make sure you received more validation on the feedback you received in the Workshop thread because I feel like they were very good critiques that still apply to the final submitted version.
 
I'm excited to see what you submit to us in the future
 
NO

I replied on the YT vid, but YT isn't really the place for in-depth feedback.  Had no idea you posted here too, but I love it!  I'm also the guy who wrote the source, so I'm a little biased
 
It sounds pretty heavy in the lows/low-mids, especially with the combination of the low piano and low strings.  I think you're getting a little mud from the two together, and it may be to the track's benefit to either make some concessions with part writing when both get a little busier, or to reexamine your EQ on the two instruments (possibly both).  I love how the two work together, especially the lead cello stabs, they're just fighting each other really hard right now in the lower range.

You may also be getting some unwanted compression from the drums, particularly the kick.  You can hear it on the higher piano notes especially, they're pumping just a bit.  A common thing with kicks is to have the subs boosted REAL high without really being able to hear it, since that's a range that typically gets fairly bad response in most headphones or speakers (if you don't have a sub).  I LOVE the drum groove itself, it's exactly what it needs to be.  I'm grooving all the way through, so no complaints on the part-writing there either.
 
Hope that helps a bit!  Again, love all the extra nods to the Melee theme you snuck in, and thanks for making the 'mix

MOD REVIEW

Alrighty, mod review time!

Yes, dropping out that arpeggio helped a lot. The pads used really sounded like a breath in the song that was very much needed. Very nice update on this one

Giving it a full listen again, the drums and clap don't seem to fit all that well against this chill atmosphere. I understand you were going for a hip-hop feel, but I don't quite think this ended up being hip hop. It seemed to transform into something more new age-y instead, so the drums, rather than bring you back to the hip hop style, seems instead to clash with the rest of the song. Also, in the same vein as the arpeggio before the update, I notice the drums literally have only one pattern. Believe it or not, if drums just fill the space they just get in the way of the music. Your drums will need some more spice, more variety and less stylistic clashing (unless, of course, you can really make it work - do enough cool things with the drums in a hip hop style and it might actually swing the whole track in your favor).

I'm not sure about the ending on this, still. It sounds like it could really use one more chord, or something to close it off. It's not abrupt, it just sounds a little incomplete.

Production is pretty good in this one. There is a lot of bass in this one, though. Don't be afraid to fill the high end by utilizing either different instrument, or (less disruptively) incorporate some higher end EQ in the reverb setup that you have.

Overall, this is very good, almost there, I feel. The drums are not really up to par with the rest of the track, though, and that ending is a bit on the rough side. Barring that, though, I could see this being a possible post on the site, but not before these things are addressed.Great track otherwise, though; the chill nature of the instruments and the subdued pace of the track really give it some charm that I get a kick out of.

Sometimes when you try something and it doesn't work the first time, that's pretty normal. You should be able to figure out what more to do if you, for example, listen in the morning with fresh ears.
 
You could alternatively add, let's say, white noise with filter motion and reverb (i.e. wind SFX), or a soft (somewhat low-passed) ambient pad, or something. It doesn't have to be obviously-noticeable. Also, this is more of a personal thing, but I think you should try a different kick drum and replace that clap with something more snare-like. Currently it actually sounds like hip hop drums, which in this context I find distracting. I like the pad at 1:30, though. That was helpful to do (I don't believe that was there before).
 
Interesting glitching you have going on later. Perhaps tone down the mix level (i.e. wet mix) of the glitch plugin to make the glitching more subtle and less jarring.

I really like the piano, and I didn't mind the melody being high up. I think the choir stood out a bit too much though, and I didn't really like the sound of it anyways. I'd prefer a softer string sound there or something. At 2:10, I think you could take out the instruments more subtlety. Or possibly build it up more before before starting to slow down for the ending.