Jorito

Nice to see sum wubulation indeed!

Hey I opened Ableton and... thought about the arrangement, for at least ten minutes It's something! The easiest, fastest, and most fun approach is to turn my relatively sad/somber source into, well.... something funky, and even a little disco.

Sorry for being so absent, I'll definitely have my song done before the next weekend (26th).

Alright, I admit I've been distracted for the past few weeks working on other OCR staff projects behind the scenes, so I've neglected to properly follow up on the last WIP update. I see the next one has passed, so because this was on the head of the directors I'm pushing the last two dates back by three weeks. It won't happen again, folks, so be thankful for the breathing room. I am literally not allowed to delay this project again (it will likely simply be cancelled if it's on delay again), so please take these dates seriously even if I'm slow on updating the thread.
@Moseph and @Ivan Hakštok need to get in touch with me - I would like to coordinate with you two about your tracks, since they're quite important. I also gotta bug DjP 'bout his track in a bit, but that's just project tradition. I also have to get my tracks finished, because... well, yeah.  

What he said! Would be great to have you back on board! 

It’s not claimed yet, but I also didn’t know you made a WIP for it! Let me hit you up and see if we can make this happen

Did anyone claim Overworld after me? I still have a WIP sitting on my computer.
I figure I can finish it lol.

I wish I had more history to say about this track that I did with the others, but I don't. This track is just plain awesome. I thought it an interesting choice to do a spaghetti western theme for the track with Jorito pitched it, but I was willing to give it a whirl. I know this was a combo track of Yafotuma Dawn and Eastern Sky Pirates, but it was clear the Sky Pirates was the dominant theme of the two, Jorito struggled hard trying to incorporate Yafotuma into the melody somehow. Within a short span of a few months, he gave me a WIP that sealed my love for the peace and I signed off on this amazing rendition and he went full throttled and got additional performers to make it the best it could be! Definitely one of my favorite tracks on the album and hot off the heels of the atmospheric Dark Rift theme "The Darkness is Already Here." A perfect wake-up call from the somber rift, just like in the game!

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

Funnily enough, Mac (Furilas) is also a great bass player, but I was so focused on the harmonica part that I forgot to ask him if he’d be interested in performing on bass too. Awell, the sampled bass worked pretty well too, by the sound of it

I don't know these sources and I see that my fellow judges have gone over them in great detail, and I thought it would be fun to listen to the track in isolation before listening to the sources at all.  What a cool track this is!  Totally immersive.  The mixing is just right for what it is trying to achieve, every element has it's place and nothing overstates itself.  The arrangement is dynamite.  Completely enjoyable track, great work!
YES

I'd say the stated source connection from 3:15-3:31 was very weak due to the strings and horns being so pushed to the back, but the overall source usage was strong and otherwise timed out as stated in the submission letter, so thanks to Jorrith for being helpful there. Nothing else to say but great job. The usage of the them from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" was very fleeting, so no big deal there. There was some soft clicking at 2:14 that I noticed, but could be easily overlooked as it wasn't that loud.
Other than that, nice work! Without actively verifying the source tune usage in the arrangement, I wouldn't have been able to tell which sections were source vs. original writing, so great job weaving those sections together seamlessly.

Y'all come back now, ya hear?

YES

I didn't feel like the references to "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" were even noticeable unless one was specifically looking for them, and even then they're subtle.  Despite how iconic that theme is, I had to specifically look it up to listen for the tie-ins.
The strings were a little mechanical, but there wasn't much of them.  The vocals coming in halfway through were a little surprising--that works better in Morricone's work where the vocals are much more in the background--but that's a minor issue.  The arrangement does get a little hot and busy in the climax (3:48-4:20, especially 4:04 on), but that's my only major concern.
Otherwise, really good stuff, absolutely accomplishes what it sets out to do, and definitely should be part of the album's mixflood.
YES

I've been listening to this track for months, but surprisingly I didn't really listen to the sources until now - on its own it's just that good. I find it very interesting in the breaks that there is a LOT of original material which could've led to you using too much 'Good, Bad, and Ugly', but it's really just that - original material. I hear some of the infamous guitar arpeggio from that movie from time to time (like at 4:20), but surprisingly the direct references are very few and far between. That's good, because I'd REALLY hate to reject this due to breaking site rules on that.
The source breakdown helps quite a bit, and it shows that while there IS a lot of original material, it still has about a 56% connection to the sources, which is within acceptable ranges. The seamless blending of bridging material and the two sources in the style of 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly' really works wonders for this, and the production values are top notch  - I'm looking forward to this being on the front page (when the album is released)!
YES

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 don't think I even want to say a lot here. "Epic" is just a huge understatement when it comes to describing this remix. Simply one of those tracks that make the chills run down my spine. Incredible job, everyone!

It's a banger.
You head shall remain unbanged.

SPEAKING OF MOVEMENT:
Gonna be bangin' some heads tomorrow, y'all. This ain't like last time - we're gonna be releasing this soon, so don't sleep on those WIP dates!

The Workshop doesn't have a direct effect in the judging process in the sense that, we don't go look at the workshop thread and feedback for every single mix (I do it for some though).  But it does serve as an indirect help in the sense that every track that doesn't meet the bar and reaches the queue adds more time and work to the panel and thus slows the queue down.  When a track is approved by a workshop moderator, which again, go through the same interviews, tests etc. as judges, it has a very high chance of making it through the panel and makes evaluation quicker and easier.  It also saves time and headaches for the artists, as submitting a song, waiting X months only to get it rejected is not ideal, most artists would've moved on from that track already into new things, or even evolved beyond what they showed on that track and probably wouldn't be that keen on going back to it.  The workshop feedback is supposed to be more immediate to help you fix issues in a much shorter timeframe, but again, that's not always working as intended because the workshop staff can get burnout or life gets in the way and that queue gets clogged too.
Anyways, it doesn't hurt to show off your track in the workshop or even join the workshop discord channel and ask for a listen there, possibly get some feedback and have a better chance at making it past the bar, especially if you're new to creating music or don't have a posted remix yet.  Even though I should have a good idea of where the bar is, I always try to get a friend to listen to it and tell me if it's good enough or check for issues.

Aaron Webber @RubyEclipse on Twitter, Social Media and PR guy for SEGA of America was delivered by us, over 70 copies of the physical Arcadia Legends album! They also sent over copies with personalized letters from us to SEGA of Japan where a copy got into the hands of REIKO KODAMA, the producer of Skies of Arcadia! She was VERY pleased! We did it guys! They appreciated all the hard work and effort we did to make this a reality!   It may not make a huge difference in getting a Skies of Arcadia 2, but I'm willing to take whatever we can get! Thanks again to everyone who contributed and supported us!

I'm probably game for this but might take a while to get a claim in - gotta clear the backlog a bit first and find myself a nice protagonist.

I love this, might be my favorite track on the whole album (which is excellent all the way through). 

It reminds me of "A Real Hero" by College (feat. Electric Youth), from the movie Drive. It's just such a strong result of an obviously clear vision.
 

Synthwave is one of those genres I'd never heard of until recently but thanks to Bandcamp, it's now one of my fave genres of music in general (not just specifically electronic music). This song makes me feel like I'm cruising through the neon-colored streets of the 80s in my Delorean, Ready Player One-style!

So as an orchestral musician and and a brass player myself I really just wait around this forum for people to send orchestral stuff.

So this hits both of the areas of things I do. The first thing I notice is that the mixing is actually pretty good, everything is really clear, and it's for the most part orchestrated well. That said, I do have some objections to the use of samples here.

It seems like you're using cinebrass (or another similar sounding brass library), which is just fine. Cinebrass is awesome. I think you could do a little bit different job of using the articulations patch. In this case, using 2 layers, an articulation patch, and the legato patch under it. That gives you the sustain and power of the brass, but without the "pretty" articulation that that patch normally has. Let's take a timestamped journey:

Beginning - Your use of the Captain Falcon samples throughout are hilarious, in a very good way.
Beginning - This brass figure where you're repeating the note over and over, I can tell by listening that the velocities are either very similar or the same and you're just relying on the round robin articulations of the patch. I would suggest using the repeated notes in the strings, and letting the brass just hit accents. This is my orchestral brass player side talking. I have had to play many parts written just like this. They're tiring and really tedious to rehearse, for not much musical reward.
I also think that doubling the horns and trumpets in octaves like this would be more effective with just the hits rather than every note. You can hear that this adds some mud to an otherwise clean mix.

:21 - I'm listening with headphones now. I think you actually are using the sustain+articulation thing I mentioned, but the sustain is so much quieter than the attack that it just sounds like attack to me, and it ends up doing that car horn, honky kind of sound. Balance out articulation+sustain and it'll work really well.

Actually that covers most of the things I'm hearing here.

Thanks to all artists for being patient with us & trusting @prophetik music's leadership on release scheduling; we took a bit longer, yes, but the music & presentation did benefit. Very proud of this release; Arcadia Legends was amazing & you've followed it up with something amazing, and kicked off 2019 in Q1 in a *great* way.
Special shout out to @Jorito for musical AND code contributions, too, as he provided a very complete website which we only tweaked minimally... really helped. I wanted to somehow animate the caustics that were added, but ran out of time for proper implementation.
Credit to all, but extra tip of the hat to Brad for effective coordination & responsible/thoughtful direction... as with DFW & our previous album, I feel like communication was always effective & deliberation productive.
I didn't play Chrono Cross, but I've known & loved its soundtrack over the years, often through mixes featured on the site. Now I love it even more; there's an organic, passionate vein that flows through Chronopolis, but with individual tracks still distinguishing themselves stylistically & through genre. It feels diverse in form, but unified in function, and that's something I personally enjoy in an arrangement album, because it's something I *also* enjoy about many game soundtracks themselves. There are moments of awe, moments of wonder, moments of beauty, moments of joy... with each emotion expressed in a fashion that serves it quite well. Excellent stuff!