The Vodoú Queen   Members

Back at it again, m'friends.  Hope y'like.
 

I'm in!

I gave the original a listen, and while it sounds amazing in its' own right, I kind of like this version better.  The section from around 1:07 - 2:30 was great stuff.  Those sparkling bell tones were on point, as well as the all the little percussion elements.  The drop at 1:04 was quality. 

If life permits I'll jingle dem bells. 🎄

Sign me up, as per usual. :)

count me in for holiday cheer :)

It's July 7th. It's time for the Summer, baby. We've got heat, we've got humidity, we've got all the things needed to make you feel sticky... and not in a good way. But don't worry, I've got something cool for you.
Yepper, it's time to start recruiting for the next An OverClocked Christmas album! We've got over five months before the due date, so let's see how many people are interested in taking part for the seventeenth entry in this (usually) happy, seasonal project.
As per the norm, this project is open to any and all OCR members, regardless of whether you're a posted remixer or not. You want info? I got your info right here...
When's The Project Deadline?- December 20th, 2024 at 11:59 P.M. EST.
This is now a REALLY hard, non-negotiable deadline, since it's very close to Christmas. We've had lots of last-minute entries and updates over the years and, to be perfectly honest, it shouldn't be that way. With months of time, having to hold off as long as possible for people made things pretty hectic for myself and Dyne in the past. Treating this project like a college paper that doesn't get worked on until the last minute got annoying rather quickly when it kept adding up to lots of hurrying year after year, with last second updates to artwork and retagging/reuploading things. As such, you have until one minute before midnight EST on December 20th to get me the final WAV or MP3 of your song. After that, you're shit outta luck until next year. I need time to do everything, including possibly making a little website to host this project if Dyne isn't online for one reason or another. So this deadline's set in stone... PERIOD.
What Information Does The Coop Need?- When you send me your final versions, I'll need what name you want to use (real or remixer handle) and the name of your remix. Please, come up with something when you send me links to the file, rather than just giving me a file called "ff6-owa-v3f.mp3" and nothing else. You don't have to tell me what song you're remixing, but I do need a name for the remix. Plus, if you have a website you'd like to pimp, supply that as well and I can add it to the MP3 tags.
What Can Be Remixed?- Any song, really. Traditional Christmas carols, video game music, published music by a signed artist, music from TV/cartoons/anime... whatever gets your heart racing and into that Christmas spirit. This isn't an official OCR album, so you can draw from more sources than just VGM. Plus, you can take a non-Christmas tune, like the Main Theme from Space Harrier, Stage 6 Mission 2 from Metal Head, or I Defend STM from Truxton II, and turn it into a Christmasy one. So know that it's not limited only to songs that are Christmas-like to begin with. All that said, do keep in mind that if you want to submit your song to OCR later, you'll need to keep this site's guidelines in the back of your mind. But for this album, you can take it in just about any direction you want and get as crazy as you'd like (but please, no "Silver Bells" done in farts or something).
How Long Can My Song Be?- As long as you want it to be. There are no restrictions on this, so whether it's 1:30, or 9:51 with a five minute guitar solo ala Metallica, it's all good. But again, if you want to submit your song to OCR later, keep their guidelines in mind.
What Genres Can I Remix In?- Again, the door's wide open here. Rap, Metal, Pop, Piano-solo, Orchestral, Jazz, 8/16-bit, Barber Shop Quartet, A capella, Death Polka... it's up to you where you want to take it.
What Format Should I Submit My Song In?- WAV or an MP3 of at least 192KB/s quality. I'll be tagging the MP3s and making MP3s from any submitted wavs, so you don't have to worry about that. But, if you'd like your website to be in the MP3 comments section, be sure to give it to me when you submit your song.
How About A Little Music To Get Us In The Mood?- To help everyone along, here's a YouTube list of Christmasy tunes made by Ocre a number of years ago...
https://ocremix.org/community/topic/32727-an-overclocked-christmas-~-now-recruiting/?tab=comments#comment-676914
What's The Website's Address Again?- It's got a new home at... http://williammichael.info/aocc/ This album will still be downloaded there as well, as Dyne will continue to host the albums on his site.
How Do We Contact This The Coop Person?- If you've got questions, comments, concerns, want feedback, or your track is done and ready to be sent to me, you can PM me here on OCR, or send me an E-mail at thecoopscorner@gmail.com. Just be sure you remember to include a link to your remix, or attach it to your message.

So yeah, there you go. You've got over five months to get something done for the lovely people of OverClocked Remix and the billions of listeners around the world who've become followers of our project.
Good luck, have fun and make everyone some Nice Work™!

Artists involved thus far...
The Coop (director, cover artist and remixer)
The Vodoú Queen (remixer)
colorado weeks (remixer)
Dj Mokram (remixer)
Souperion (remixer)
Seth Skoda (remixer)
Lampje4life (remixer)
NarnianWarrior (remixer)

Hey there!
Just had a listen to this, and I would definitely say I enjoyed it. Love the fact this is a faithful re-imagining of the original, whilst still putting a bit of your own twist onto it (like the swirly verbs echoing the violin/strings, heavy industrial/dark orchestral drums towards the end starting ~3:15, and the plucky acoustic guitar @ 2:00). The harp and piano combination is beautiful, as well. As a 1:1 cover, it does its job. If someone showed me this, and I did not know the original Ezio's Family track, I'd take this as basically either the original or an adaptation of it directly from / endorsed by Ubisoft. So from a rendition-standpoint, it's very lovely.
I do ask, however, if you have more story to tell behind this or more ideas for it? Do you plan on submitting this to OCR? :) If so, you'd have to do a lot more to this to make it more your own personal take on the source, even if it's still a very conservative take more faithful to the source. If not, I'm curious as to how you ran into this source, and what compelled you to do a cover of it? :D

Howdy, VQ! Also gonna reiterate live review notes for posterity:
The judges honed in on the fuzziness happening from 3:25-4:09. It's highly likely to be too much saturation on something. This can be tamed with a high shelf cut around 6-8kHz or by pulling the saturation back about 10%. The modulation/key change into the same section was a great idea that needs the proper preparation for the listeners to stick with it. I think we determined you're going from Ab Major to E Major. Major third modulations are pretty easy to handle as modulations go -- I mentioned going to a shared chord between the keys but you don't have many between these two keys. However, Hemo suggested some tritone substitution action. In this case, do an Ab7 (Ab-C-Eb-Gb) chord into (in this case) a B7 (B-D#-F#-A) chord leading into the change into the E Major (E-G#-B). You can omit the 5ths on the 7 chords (Eb and F#, respectively) if you don't have enough voices to cover the chords -- but keep the 7th intervals spread out to minimize the potential dissonance.

Hi VQ!
Gonna reiterate what I can from the live review:
Be very selective about what voice is the focus in each section, and pare back parts that aren't providing texture for your rhythm and harmony lines Consider swapping the bass ostinato from Shinobi 3 in the middle sections of the piece with another melodic phrase from your sources; I recommend the descending arpeggio siren thing from Rise of the Robots This is gonna be a groove machine when you're done. It always sucks to go back and start from scratch on mixes but it's worth it in the end!

howdy folks!
as a serial compo-er, i often face the challenge of being able to spit out a track idea in a relatively short amount of time, but when it comes to refining and polishing i tend to find myself scratching my head. i'm looking to tackle that by polishing up my one-and-only (for now 😉) PRC entry and getting it up-to-snuff for submission. it's a city-pop-inspired remix of "1000 words."
here is the submission for PRC472.
a lot of things are currently on my to-do list, including:
possibly changing the key so it's a half-step higher, re-recording guitar parts per this change shortening the length to the verses/choruses that appear in game, since it's fairly long as-is more ear candy one thing i'm struggling with at the moment with is making room for that adlib in the last chorus on top of all of the other elements going on, on top of trying to keep the production of the track true to its city-pop inspiration. if anybody's got any tips for me in that department, please let me know!
other constructive comments are greatly appreciated! thanks y'all!
 
edit: source

Hey all.
This is gonna be relatively quick, because I wasn't sure if I'd present it or try to rework it again yet, but. . .
SUBMITTED, MASTERED SONG:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ixEWhVdIC-Xj1y5YevPlgwfW9hTDTgYF/view?usp=sharing
ORIGINAL DECISION:
SOURCE TRACKS:
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master - "Inner Darkside"
Rise of the Robots - "Prime 8 / The Builder's Stage"
REFERENCE TRACKS:
The Glitch Mob (Aesthetics / Vibe / Asian & Ethnic Influences)
Mike Oldfield - "Tubular Bells (Theme from 'The Exorcist')"
'Theme from the X-Files'
I uhm...don't entirely know what to do to resolve the critique points for this track arrangement-wise. *Mixing* I might be able to grasp on, but the basses are hell, and I need to find a way to rhythmically marry the two sources together better? Or--at the very least--the main issues I took from it are: 1) too much going on that sounds fuzzy, and 2) there's not enough variation on the main motif. . .and I guess the sources are very strange / weird / wack...etc.
Any comments or questions or concerns would be great to discuss here and ask. ♥ I'm open to any ideas on how to redress this or...whatever. I'd hope maybe the way the song is built is alright, and maybe it's just the elements within in that are problematic and can be resolved for the better.

This sounds to me like you didn't need any help reaching that finish line after all. 👏
Time to airdrop this baby into the judge's den and wait for the fireworks. ✈️🎇

Hey.
Mastered and Unmastered mp3 versions of both of these, in the context of seeing if anyone has anymore to add for the final stretch. ♥
...Think Snowy Lambcow is just as tired of seeing me as I am of it. Feels like I'm crawling with a broken spine after dat boi trampled me on the way to the finish line...
But I ain't frozen yet. I didn't hear no bell. ;)
So, yeah. Any final pearls of wisdom or word of advice or cautionary tale on these before I ship it back into the lion's den would be immensely helpful, thank you so much.
Time to crash out in the meantime, rofl.
 
UNMASTERED:

VQ - Sorrowful Bellows (UNMASTERED) MP3.mp3    
MASTERED:

VQ - Sorrowful Bellows (MASTERED) MP3.mp3    

Hi everyone!
Last night, I held a live webinar on YouTube about dialing in mix-ready guitar and bass tones for your remixes. You can find the VOD below:
VSTi and VSTs from the Webinar, also in the video description:
(not all were used in the webinar; all plugins listed below were curated for this webinar based on their quality and price - they're all free!)
Guitar:
Cute Emily SG Shreddage 3 Stratus Unreal Instruments Metal-GTX (requires Plogue Sforzando) Bass:
Shreddage 3 Precision MODO Bass 2 Amp Sims:
Ignite Amps SHB-1 (SHB-1 is a boutique tube amp sim for bass guitar; comes with it's own cab IR built in) Ignite Amps Emissary and NadIR (Emissary is their boutique tube amplifier sim, NadIR is a cabinet IR sim that can be used with ANY other amp sim) Guitar Rig 7 Shattered Glass Audio ACE IK Multimedia Amplitube 5 Pedal VSTs:
TSE Audio 808 TSE Audio R47 Plugin Boutique Face Bender  

Hey Queenie. Glad your hiatus was brief and I hope you're feeling better today. ☺️
Last review I held back the stats, but there's an issue in this version I need to address right off the bat: you've got at least 14 instances of clipping and a sample peak of 0db ...on an unmastered track. Your master is gonna brick wall something fierce unless you do some gain-staging and leave headroom for dynamics, which are critical in an orchestra piece. I'd advise toning down the busy chorus part at 2:53, especially in relation to the previous section as the crescendo leading to it is pretty succinct/sudden. 
Speaking of, the Evil Glockenspiel was tamed but alas not vanquished. It remains overbearing during said chorus despite being noticeably quieter, yet still louder than everything else, detracting from the impact of that section. And while you took the time to make the composition less complex so every element can now shine, this also puts an additional spotlight on the Glock here. Easy fix tho: just drop a few dBs on it and let the orchestra be the dominant feature. I'd even suggest omitting some notes at intervals on that leitmotiv, to give it humanization. 
The last section still has some dissonance and note-clashing between 4:11~4:35, though I'd love for it to be entirely intentional, cause it adds a unique twist of uneasiness that confers character to the remix. Those small complaints aside, you pretty much addressed most gripes I had before, so props on the outstanding effort. 👍✨
Gotta say, I admire the pugnacity with which you fought for your creative ideas, but am also glad you went back and tinkered to fix issues pointed out by everyone. I respect your desire to claim this victory all by yourself and wear your crown with pride in front of the panel, but if you need help ironing out last kinks or with orch mastering, don't hesitate to hit me up. Good luck polishing this diamond to a shine. 👑💎

As promised, I said I would update things here...instead of bombarding Discord #Workshop threads like a madwoman. xD
As it currently stands, this is probably my last iteration on the song, fully done now and updated with everyone's kind feedback in mind and actioned--inclusive of the old critique from the past rejection. It is unmastered, and I'm sliding it in here to see if The Sages or @Dj Mokram or @Emunator has any further ideas to glint. More-so, I think...I'm just trying to catch people for a final vibe-check (in case my ears are shot), and see if it's ready for the Panel again, regardless of result. Dunno how to necessarily master it, but I mixed it to the fullest extent I could after doing a lot of research and video watching on orchestral composition/arrangements (and practice with other work), and limiting/reassessing the reference scope to primarily TSO with hints of Tchaikovsky and Chopin.
I'm being hopeful...and trying to find and instill the confidence in my solo projects to try again.
As most people are aware, I've been hammering at this in-between nonsense for a good long while throughout the process since the reject. I hope...I've compressed the lump of coal into an unprocessed diamond, and now have given it the cut and polish to push it over the goal-line. :)
 
VQ - Sorrowful Bellows WIP (UNMASTERED).mp3

Note: I don't believe I can produce an unbiased vote due to this being on an album I'm directing, but I will drop my thoughts on this regardless.
This is a track that Voduo and I worked through quite a bit, so I know all of the iterations that it went through. It's biggest strength throughout was it's daring use of SFX to compliment the source, and the variety of harmonizations used through the mountain source. There is a little clashing between the minor harmonies and major melody sometimes, but in this stage it more or less adds flavor and doesn't detract from the enjoyment I get from the track.
The production is clean, though I do hear the lack of the lowest end (anything below 50hz) upon relistening with some fresh ears. That could be solved by giving the instruments acting as the bass and kick some bass EQ balancing, since it's not *lowpassed* from what I can see in a spectrum analyzer, just lacking in that area. That'd solve both the lack of presence the bass has on neutral headphones and the overall soundscape issue this has. I wouldn't mind handing it back to her with that critique in mind, but I also do believe that it's in a state that's good enough at least for the album and possibly for the site; I'd not have accepted this track as finished otherwise.
I'd likely give this a YES, even if I wasn't biased in favor of the track to begin with.

I am remiss in not getting around to this one sooner, having been chimp-signaled!  I know proph and I discussed this in the Discords but I failed to vote.  So, now I will.
Right off the bat, I see that the peak max is hitting 1.7db so something has happened on the mastering side, either a limiter fail or a failure to limit.  I don't hear any over-compression artifacts, but I wonder if YouTube encoding/compression will cause artifacts on a file that goes over 0db.  I just don't know.
This song feels overstuffed to me, like there are too many elements, and too many varied ideas and sounds happening at the same time.  Nothing is clashing dealbreakingly, but it just kind of feels like too much stuff, too much of the time.  I feel like there is so much going on that nothing is coming through very clearly, the mixing is muddled.  It is hard to get a super clean mix with this many elements. 
As others have pointed out, the bass lacks presence.  I agree this would probably be solved by EQing the lowest frequencies out of all elements other than kick and bass; really nothing should be playing below 150-200-ish Hz other than kick and bass.  Also, sidechaining should be used so that when the kick hits, it isn't conflicting with the bass (or anything else) which causes frequencies to dogpile, which reduces mastering headroom.  I'm not hearing much sidechaining in the mix, if any?  I sidechain everything in my mixes, not so much for effect as for mixing clarity.
The bass playing from 2:34-3:02 does not sound good at all.  The patch is playing a full octave below what it is capable of playing, and I can hear it groaning under the strain.  That section is cool, but it needs a bass that can play those low/sub notes to support it.  At 3:38, the bass has a similar problem; it sounds like it is trying to keep up but just can't hit those low notes, and it feels uncomfortable.
I do love the vibe and energy of this track!  I recognize some of my own earlier efforts in this mix however, back when I wanted to throw too many competing ideas in together.  Sometimes it makes sense to go through and remove things when that happens, and focus on the elements you really want in the mix, and make them shine.
Reading through the preceding votes, everyone digs this arrangement, and I do too!  But there are tons of critiques and suggestions given regarding the sound choices and mixing.  I can understand voting YES to put this track on OCR, but I am going to say that some of these issues should be cleared up first.  If this passes, it will be one of those tracks the artist looks back on a few years from now and says "oof."  
At a minimum, please make sure your master is limited at 0db.  Also, please go through and EQ things so that nothing is playing in the low end (below 150Hz at the very least) other than your kick and bass.  Replace bass patches that aren't able to carry the low notes.  Do some sidechaining to avoid things competing whenever the kick hits.  When this is mixed better, as everyone else is saying, this will be a tremendously good track.
NO (resubmit, borderline)
 
 

Panning's odd right from the get-go. Yeah, on headphones, this is all too wide, and the elements here all just sound lossy, and I can't explain why. Absolutely bizarre to have the track mixed this way, then have it finish saying "Reset" and having it centered and clear. :-D This'll seem like I'm disgusted or felt this was really poor mixing; in 22 years of evaluating VGM arrangements, I've never, not even once, heard a track mixed in this way and can't explain why it sounds like this. Whatever approach was taken, it doesn't create some kind of synergy in the overall stereo combination, it actually saps color & personality from it, and I'm unsure if it's just from panning wideness. I haven't read any other decisions before making mine, but I'm hoping a musician J can spell out how panning should work and what approach works best to create noticeable tilt on either side while not sounding so lossy and lacking clarity. A minor thing, but the snaps at 4:34 were too loud. Looking at Chimpazilla's comments now, I wasn't bothered by too much going on, just whatever frequency cuts or panning decisions ended up harming the clarity.  
This may even sound fine on monitors/speakers, but I'm primarily a headphone listener and the way this has been mixed sounds lossy, imbalanced, and lacks clarity. I'm a NO strictly on production, but enthusiastically on board with this otherwise; writing-wise, this is the coolest Lufia arrangement I've ever heard, flat out pro-grade Japanese official arrangement album energy, and I can understand YESing it. The sound design's otherwise creative (chips at 2:06 were cool; nice gradual rise & fall in the lil' vocal bits from 3:01-3:28), I love the textures and dynamics, the beats are impactful, and the arrangement is fire. I'm hoping some sort of switches can be flipped to undo this overall effect and restore some sheen and sharpness to this.
NO (resubmit)

The story and journey are the great strengths of this track. I especially like how you’ve brought the Battle Theme 1 as the “B section” that starts at 3:01 and then builds back up to a recapitulation of Towering Mountain.  The main source however is the Towering Mountain theme and it’s the one that the majority of this is built on. There are some nice contrasting sections that have less going on so when we get back to the full sections they really feel big. For me a highlight of contrast is the switch to longer bass notes at 2:34, coming from the shorter length notes makes these ones feel much more impactful (that might even be a different bass sound too?)  The arrangement's structurally well put together and my only gripe with the arrangement is that the ending does lose a bit of energy as it comes to a close. Maybe the ending could have been shortened some to help keep some of that energy, start it out very quiet and have a long crescendo until the final reset, or some crazy effects build up?
There are some production issues that do need to be mentioned.  The bass is lacking presence and the mids are scooped out making the top end feel hot.  You could bring the mids up and the highs down, as this is the area they generally sit in.  That could help to give the melody more clarity. Those imbalances are there, but they aren't so off to me that it takes away from my listening to it.  I get swept up in the cacophony and hold on for the wild ride hoping that it's not going to reset on me and start over. 
YES (borderline)

Any track with this many borderline votes already is going to be a challenge, so I'm going to do my best to approach this objectively without the weight of my own expectations or previous feedback I've given on Queen's other tracks.
We start off with a pretty good soundscape but the mixing is very puzzling - I don't feel like there's much substance in the low end throughout much of the track outside of the kick drums, or the basses that are present are so low that they actually don't come through at all to the human ear. Make sure that you're selecting your basses strategically based on which patches work with the range that you're writing in, and keep an eye on where your bass fundamental is falling. Adding in upper harmonics by layering in other patches (being careful to cut out the lower frequencies from all but your sub, so you don't encounter phase cancellation issues) or by adding saturation to your existing bass can also help that bass come through audibly. Human hearing can span from 20Hz-20kHz, but in reality if your bass only exists down in those lowest registers, or it's not mixed properly, it's not going to be heard by most listeners on most setups, and I think that's what's happening here.
The stereo spread is also problematic, and I'm definitely in agreement with Liontamer that it's sort of intangible and probably can't be diagnosed without looking at your project file. That said, it feels imbalanced at multiple points, and I also suspect that there might be bass elements like your kick/synths/snares that are panned off to the side. As a general rule of thumb, you want your low end presence to be pretty much mono, and the higher up the frequency range you go, the more you can pan to the sides without causing issues. This is where you'll need to use your tools to analyze what's going on on your bus and master level to see if things are generally balanced - currently, it feels like they're not.
I also need to echo the overall balance issues that I've brought up on previous submissions and I'll say again here - you have so many great ideas but you can't have them all fighting for attention and retain that same impact. 2:55 is a great example of this - you have so much going on and so many effects that the big supersaw has to be cranked up so loud just to cut through, and that's not really the approach you want to take. 4:48 also suffers from this - some of your synths are awash with so much reverb and effects, not to mention being a heavily-harmonic synth from the start, that they leave no room for anything else. If you compare this to melodic dubstep tracks by artists like Seven Lions, for example, they use supersaws to great effect, but there's almost nothing else going on when those synths are present. Dropping out other elements through gain reduction, cutting layers, or sidechain ducking to make room for what you really want to highlight is a much better move than simply increasing the volume on your synths even further.
All that said, your arrangement is really good here. There's a ton of compelling effects and sounds, and like many of your other pieces, you have a wealth of great ideas that you brought to the table. I actually find the arrangement to be pretty coherent and strong, even compared to your usual tracks - the use of chiptune sounds is well integrated, and the drum writing is strong too. On a fundamental level, if I'm not looking at production quality, this is a pass every day of the week, but the overall listening experience feels unpolished in a way that ultimately has a negative impact on my listening experience.
I want to stress this - this one is absolutely salvageable and I think would take significantly less work to polish than many of your other tracks that haven't passed. I don't think this is a lost cause, but after a lot of contemplation, I think this needs another round of polish to sand off the harsh edges and achieve a better balanced mix, so that your wonderful arrangement can shine.
NO (resubmit!)

Gonna keep this concise if I can. You’ve listed James Landino, Dj Cutman (and his GameChops label), and some other VGM stalwarts as influences. Good taste. What they all have in common is an ability to take simple melodies and execute a REALLY tight blend of production and arrangement to put out the product they do. Actually, with Cutman and a lot of GameChops releases, it’s less arrangement and more just market-savvy packaging. Regardless, they all have a way of using a specific, targeted sound set and high production value to achieve their goals. 
 
This, however, is all over the map. Is this song a tight EDM track? It shouldn’t meander the way it does, never settling on an identity. Is it an experimental jam? Lean into it but don’t expect to have mass appeal. Sounds have been selected that don’t complement each other or have a clear cut goal and that hurts the stated aim of this song. It’s presenting itself as one thing but is fundamentally not that thing.
 
There’s a lot of other specific, actionable feedback already given (instrument selection, mixing, etc) so I’m going to stay high-level and say that if your goal is to sound like modern commercial VGM/EDM remixes, you’ll need to drastically simplify your approach and then polish it to a mirror sheen. FOCUS on just a few elements to showcase, and everything else should support those elements. 
 
If this song passes the panel, cool. It’s got some neat ideas and goes on a journey, even if it seems to detour too often. My vote is due to clumsy, over complicated execution of what should be much simpler.
 
NO

Okay, so, this arrangement is awesome. Personally I don't care if you're trying to fill the shoes of the references you named, and I'm not going to judge whether or not it passes the bar based on whether or not you hit a target. I think this is a great interpretation with a lot of really fun interesting things going on.   But I am going to no it because of the mixing. If you ARE going to go for this hybrid EDM thing, the sound has to be full and vast, with a lot more punch and substance. Right now, I feel like we're really missing a lot of the bottom half, almost like you carved it out intentionally in mastering, since it seems to be missing in all of the instruments, not just the ones that should be providing that bottom end. This arrangement has so much power, but it's hamstrung by the way you put it all together. I don't care too much about the panning, but I do care about the way that it's taking a lot of incredible instrumentation and sucking the life out of it with EQ.    My issue with giving feedback is that I am not entirely certain how to do it because it's SO busy and there's SO much going on in SO many places that I can't really pick out specific things for you to add foundation to, but I would start with the kicks and the bassline. Also, watch how many times you're stacking pads, and watch how they're EQed as well. I hear several of them stacked on top of each other, so what that does is skew the curve to the right, and suddenly we're missing a lot of stuff.   This is a really great arrangement, I know this can be incredible with a little bit of work!   NO (resubmit!)

A judge's aim isn't to identify whether it hit the artist's brief or not—which Flexstyle touched upon—but actually whether it hit the site standards. And on a creative level, I like what you did with it. Yes, it has a more simplistic approach with some interpretive variations on the primary source and the battle theme's usage as a bridge—but in this case, simplicity works.
To break it down even more, you put the opening notes of the melody on the gated synths at 0:14, overlaid it with the melody, and kept it this way throughout the build that ended at 0:54. You then got the melody at complete focus at 1:08 with the half-time drums, changing to four-on-the-floor kicks and gates at 1:24 and repeating both ideas with different synth layers from 1:38 onwards. The cute 8-bit break at 2:06 turned to more of that half-time sound when interpreting the primary source's second half. At the other side of the battle theme at 3:38, most of your second interpretation had no percussion and more of those Mega Drive-style bells for a more spacious finish, give or take a brief section at 3:51 that briefly went back to that initial main source presentation. I am also okay with how your bass and pad (try to) work together, and it doesn't detract from your overall vision, either.
So, while that checks out, the production, on the other hand, still needs some work. Yes, I love your choice of effects and overall sound design, so that should be fine, but the mastering still needs work. As previously mentioned, there's no low end here, and the bass, in particular, is trying so hard to poke out from the rest of the instrumentation. Chimpazilla mentioned an excellent technique for doing EQ cuts on other instrumentation to get it to shine through, in addition to side chains when necessary. The little bits of bass I am hearing are trying to push through the sub-frequencies, which would typically rumble under an actual present bass at a higher octave and get the subwoofer to really work, if anything at all.
It makes sense to mention EQ cuts on other instruments because when you're writing several dozen stem projects like this one, it makes sense for you to understand where your fundamental frequencies (aka pitches) and harmonics are so you can choose what you want to emphasize/minimize and EQ the rest of your instruments around your cuts and gains. It'll no longer be a case of piling up a lot of virtual performers on the same pile on a stage and more of squeezing them neatly for the sake of performance.
Angelique, this is a creative idea, and I am all for this submission, making it onto OC Remix. However, it needs another mixdown pass before I feel confident about its inclusion. Again, don't give up, and keep being you. :-)

NO (resubmit)