Mr. Hu

This is certainly an experimental approach to the water theme (which I couldn't pick out last night but did today!), and a lot of good experimental music divides people. But I think this remix will find/has found an audience that will appreciate it for what it is. YouTube is maybe the biggest forum for video game music ever, and is also the land of instant gratification. People like their EDM, chillwave, orchestral, etc (me too), and will slam that dislike button - even if they don't truly dislike it - and quickly move on. If this remix was created to be a patience-tester, you've dropped it in the right sample group!

This is so heroic and.......driving. Really love the mixing and compression here. Super professional. Reminds me of a modern Mario Kart track or maybe an F-Zero tune from Smash.

Wow. I think you made aesthetic advances from the original that make nothing but perfect sense.

Underrated game and overlooked OST for sure. I feel like this is a great track on it's own but there are definitely parts that can be reworked.

Sanctuary Fortress is my favorite tune from the Prime trilogy. I think you have a fantastic general idea of what you want this arrangement to be. The source tune has a lot to offer and you're fleshing out a lot of it well. There are two constructive criticisms I can give off the top of my head: 1. The single note piano line sound that you're using is far too dead. I'm hearing the hammers on the piano strings more than the actual notes. You can add a high pass filter on that and a little reverb, and I think it will blend it much better with your song. 2. The wacky sine wave freakout section (the one that's basically like, the signature of the original song) you have is cut and pasted throughout several sections of the song, and after the 3rd time it shows up, it's a little predictable and a bit flat. Maybe you can write a second version of this and go back and forth between the two versions, or add some filter sweeps/panning/octave jumps/whatever to liven up that section. I actually made my own version of this song, and I listened to the original at 0.25x speed on YouTube probably 20 times to parse out all those notes. You certainly don't need to go that far, but there's actually a lot of crazy stuff going on that you can parse through. Unfortunately I don't know much about EDM production to offer focused advice on that front. But from V1 to V3, you've made leaps and bounds with the instrumentation, flow and dynamism. So, yeah, keep it going!

I'm really enjoying this one. Exotic is the word; this reminds me so much of exotica music from the late 50s and early 60s - maybe a Les Baxter arrangement, or something from Martin Demmy's "Primativa" (FYI, I'm unfamiliar with the CC source). Just a really colorful trek piece that's playful and quirky but also slightly unnerving.

This is still so, so good. I found an ancient CD I made with this on it and boy...an all-time fave. I recently spent like 6 hours trying to get a WIP of mine groove like ol' Mud Mix, and it still sounds more quantized than this.

I really feel like the balance and mix of this composition is from the drummer's perspective (the drummer of a band that does esoteric Japanese OST covers - it may or may not exist). Or rather, it sounds like the listener is drumming on the song. The snare, to my ears, is at the center of everything in mix and panning, and most of the other elements fall around it. It's such an interesting kind of mix in that regard (again, to me). Plus, all those greats fills and flams sound great. FLAM! FLAM FLAM! ... Anyhow, I like this.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/koji-kondo-the-legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-time/ Okay, not quite as huge a deal as this would've been 6-8 years ago, as Pitchfork has lost a lot of influence as of late, with the new-ish popularity of YouTube music reviewers and recommendation algorithms. BUT I've personally been waiting for them to review a game OST since I started reading in 2002, so this is really cool to me. What do you think of it? I like the esoteric tidbits of Nintendo and Koji Kondo lore. I would praaaaahbably agree that OoT is the best soundtrack ever (white-hot take, I know), in the sense that it has stuff that's both catchy and ambient, and has so many pieces of music that are integrated into not only the gameplay, but the story and world-building of the game itself. A lot of subtlety, a lot of earworms, and everything always serves its purpose in-game almost flawlessly. Thoughts on the review? Thoughts on how well the OoT music/game has aged? Is it overrated? Underrated? What do you think makes a game soundtrack great?

This just flies by, doesn't it? I love the game but can't recall the original song to compare, but I love simple, somewhat linear tracks like this. Adorbs, indeed.

It's a small area of TP, but it's my favorite in the game (plus I think the TP Hyrule Field theme is the best field theme in the series - contentious take...), and this remix does a great job in evoking the "edge of the world" feel it has. I especially love the final minute, with mostly environmental sounds. I try to do ambient stuff like this, but it's hard for me to flesh out melody and get beyond simply playing sustained pads in a down-tempo loop for 6 minutes. Great work and great patience!

This swings! Loose in all the best ways, and great recording quality (curious about mic choice but I'll let it be). I actually thought this was a Mario 1 track but shows how much I know.

Great drums and awesome slinkiness of the lead (cool undertones in that, too!) on top. Groovy as gravy. Or something. Maybe syrup.

Hey, so Wayo Records is reissuing the SoA soundtrack on CD and vinyl for anyone interested, with a little shikishi (bonus card) as well. Looks beautiful, if you're a collector. https://www.wayorecords.com/en/wayo-records/653-skies-of-arcadia-eternal-soundtrack-cd-edition.html

This is quite a toe-tapper. Absolutely get a "Graceland" vibe. This kind of mixing of multiple hi-mid instruments is something I struggle with, so I'm impressed by that as well.

I just really like the part! But yeah, that harmonica is also rul rul noice.

As a bass player, I super super dig the electric bass on this. I can just see some full-suited, sweating Italian session player with a 60's Fender jazz bass, squished inside the pit alongside all the other musicians, trying his absolute best to stick to the notation while everyone else gets cooler parts than him. A consummate pro. This remix is awesome.

I often close songs in the middle of super note-y solos, but every the "wankery" here was so stylish and well-placed. Fantastic job. Even better are the last 90 seconds. Absolutely sublime work.

Not expecting it to blow me away at all, but when that Squirtle came out of the water I squealed internally like I haven't since maybe the first Hobbit trailer like, 7 years ago.

THAT is so awesome. Wow. Warms my heart, haha. One of my all time favorite games, and really probably my favorite game ever that never got a sequel (okay, it got a remake, but still!). Hopefully the composers of the game will get their hands on a copy somehow.

This reeds and voices in this are very intimate, which juxtapose the industrial-ish drums so, so well. It also paints a very clear picture of the condition of Valua as an environment, even more so than the original. Man. I love this track.

I can't believe how good the acoustic guitar sounds on the "after" FF6 mix. I can like, HEAR the timbre of the wood. Bird's eye maple, right?

I'm unfamiliar with the original, but I'm digging this so hard. That lower octave lead is like the halfway point between the shimmering high stuff and the noisier sounds (which have the perfect amount of grit, to my ears), and it blends in so well; it almost keeps the whole mix glued together. Great sound and panning on the kettle toms as well!

Not familiar with the original, but I love this. So much personalty! You did a great job in making it sound like a full-band ("band") take.

I think the brush scrapes (I think that's what they are) during the first 33 seconds are far too loud, or take up far too much frequency space. They basically sound like white noise hiss, which doesn't establish a very relaxing mood, heh. There's also just too much bass frequency in the left ear, and the snare sample from 1:10 to 1:29 is too...."blatty"? Might need a different sample, or maybe the velocities should be dialed down. I like the very humanized rests. You have the potential for a ton of neat interplay/cycling though with your instruments here, so to complete your arrangement, maybe you could just get a complete drum and bass bed frame down, and add things on top, and take out sections of whatever as you go along in order to have more features for the individual tracks.