Mr. Hu

Awesome!!!! Really excited to hear this one! One of my fave games ever and an overlooked gem of an OST for sure (the Dreamcast version especially). Very interested on how the Dark Rift theme turned out above all. One day I'll get around to a version of Ice Dungeon. Probably my favorite track from the whole game (but only played during that weird quiz/slide section...).

The bagpipe reminds me of an organ used in a couple songs by The Doors, and so I keep half-expecting some self-aggrandizing psychedelic lyrics whenever it comes in. Really nice riffs though! Catchy and pretty straightforward but plenty little touches added to keep it spicy. (As spicy as Celtic food gets, anyway...) Good levels of reverb on the whole thing, too.

Really like the plucking in the first one, and that little wait/extra measure before the second instrument comes in to harmonize. Great! The second one has a little too much white noise in the background. It's a little distracting. The arpeggio reminds me of Blade Runner. It's a'ight. The chords in the third I quite like. Actually, if the tempo was slowed down a bit and the attack pulled up a bit, this might be sublime to my ears. Pretty noice.

Man, this was one of my favorite tracks from all of the Zelda series because of the chanting (does anyone know what they're saying? I'm guessing it's a prayer.), and was so bummed when the re-releases had it replaced with some super generic stuff. The sample was used in Cruis'n World as well: But yeah, those Temple themes in OoT are underrated I think, and are fun to trace influences from. The Forest Temple always sounded like Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" to me, and the Fire Temple has that great 2-note percussion line. (And there's that great use of cuica in the Goron City...)

Seconded (third-ed?) for Dark Souls, for the aforementioned reasons. The first half of it, up until you can teleport between bonfires, was really the first time playing a game since my early teens where I felt truly dropped into another place. And the whole "gambling" with your souls mechanic...should I keep going into this cave, or bail out and bank my points? I got shellacked by enemies and bosses so many dozens of times and lost so many dozens of thousands of souls, but kept going, because whatever I uncovered next would have it all be worth it. I'll give Stardew Valley an honorable mention too, because that was the first game probably since RE 4 ages ago where I was TRULY addicted. Very charming, very chill, some great music. I had to give my copy away though. Put like 120 hours into it in 5 weeks.

It's quite repetitive, but never annoyingly so, and with that I think half the battle is already won, so nice job on the arrangement! There are a lot of issues with your instrument/sample quality though, which maybe you're already aware of. Two things jump to my ear first: Your snare drum has a washy, newspaper-y kind of reverb tail to it that should be dialed down/removed, or perhaps you could use a different snare altogether. It sounds like it was recorded with a phone or something, haha. No offense! It just sounds distracting. Your kick drum is also very thin, but if you're going with a large room, jazz kinda thing, maybe that's not a big deal. The other is that, even with a second piano playing chords, drums, and bass guitar, the lead piano is still way louder in the mix during the fast parts, despite the fact that's only playing one note at a time. It makes for a fake sounding kind of balance in your instruments, which sometimes is neither here nor there, because hey, it's art, but in this case I really think the "rhythm" piano could have more prominence in the mix, because there's some harmonies happening in there that I'd like to hear more. Also, the levels drop around 1:40, which sounds odd, because the last few chords are still played pretty hard. A piano is a very percussive instrument, what with all those tiny hammers in there, and as such, one can really be expressive with dynamic range. Maybe you'll want to just play softer/lower your velocities to get that real dynamic feel, rather than just turning down the volume? On the positive side, like I said, the piano is simple but still melodic enough. I especially enjoy the interplay at 1:20.

Really great drums on this, and exceptional use of cymbals especially. I've given this a couple listens every week since it was posted, and I get something new out of it each time. It's one of those tunes that, maybe because of it's spiraling structure, I always want to play again right after it's over. Honestly, one of the best OCR tracks I've heard in several years. "Leafcutter" was always in my OCR HoF, and I think this will be in there as well. Two tracks by the same remixer!

Pretty faithful little GameBoy-ifying version, and you got the rock transition down smoothly. But yes, as others have said your lead has some very shrill ringing harmonics around the :42 - 1:05 mark, and then again when the same section plays over. And then again during the next section. I'd EQ/filter that stuff out, for sure. I like the weird popcorn kettle drums a lot, haha. There's a bit of strange tempo skip, or maybe a missed drum somewhere at about 2:49, as well. This is one of the most hype tracks of the mid 90's for me, so I'm glad you gave it some love, especially since I don't think the DK Land version of DKC got this song... (I might be wrong)!

I think the last 30 seconds of this needs to be changed to something different from just coming back to the same organ line/crowd sounds as from before the synth progression. Maybe get a different crowd sample and change up your playing a bit? Also, I think the vinyl effect is just a bit too prominent in the first part of the song. You have some nice sounds in here, and the needle effect distracts a tiny bit from them, in my opinion. I like your drum sound a lot, and kinda want to hear a little more from them! The bass is ultra thick, for sure. It's like a bass organ and a bass guitar together. I actually like it but it is kinda EDM-y, and I generally agree with what Nikanoru said about it. This is actually one of my favorite tracks from FFVII, so I'm glad this exists. I think it's really close to being great!

Oh cool, I actually got some feedback! Thanks! I know there are parts that are pretty sparse, and not changing too much. While making this song I was listening to a lot of music by a repetitive trance guy named Lorenzo Senni, which I quite liked, and some of that definitely leaked into this song. I guess the "constant-adding-of-instruments-as-the-song-progresses" formula, while bronzed for all time at this point, was getting a little too predictable for me. That's why it sounds a bit like it "needs something". There was a bassline, and I just took it out. The whole thing became kind of reductive exercise. The delay switching on is something I know other musicians will catch, but I actually decided to not hide it on purpose, just because I think the hiccup sounds better. Like someone hitting a stomp-box in a basement show. Maybe it is little too strange! If it gets rejected, then I'll try to make it a bit more digestible.

Update again, 5/2918: Well, I'm just gonna submit this and see how it goes! Still, any extra ears would be neat-o.

Sounds like you did a great job squeezing as much as possible from a 15-second loop of music. It might be too conservative of an arrangement, ultimately, to get published, though maybe not. I hope it does, because the production is awesome! Maybe the last eight bars before the slowdown almost reached repetitive territory, but it makes the ending more effective, I think.

This is a ReMix of my favorite track from either Vectorman game (though honestly it sounds better without headphones because of that crazy spread). Updated version, 5/28/18: So this turned out pretty experimental, with different field recordings and some game SFX, as well as a long vocal track that I had planned to be a focal point cut down to only the most essential few seconds. I tried to do a bit of experimenting in the mixing as well, with butting high-frequency stuff against lower stuff, and squeezing as much dynamic range as I could out of everything without things becoming too alienating or annoying. It's kinda artsy-fartsy, but more even more fun, I think. The GooDrive link is below the OG. https://drive.google.com/open?id=15OtpmPZX4siS0yVs0iifwMw03OdEhL7b

Really like this, and is that a little bit of the "Link sneaking around" music I hear, too? Anyway, yeah, the mixing I quite like, although as a bass player, maybe your velocities during the bass solo could be given a tiny bit of variety? Like mix in a couple quieter notes as well if you wanna go for full-on realism. Otherwise the sounds are all very good. Crispy woodblock, and that wacky distorted organ has a great tone.

Powerfully disagree with DD being the best MK game, but I love the track, haha. Super relaxed vibe, and nice interweaving of the different melodies, although I guess I expected the original melody to return at the end. The one thing I'll nitpick is that maybe the wave sounds are a bit too loud, or happen once to many times, as I was a little distracted by them. But it was good enough for me to listen twice!! I especially dig the guitar.