DarkeSword

This drum kit is not working. I'm not sure if it's the kit samples themselves or how it's mixed but the crash, hi-hats, and snare especially really stick out in a bad way. An arrangement with instrumentation like this calls for a snappier, lighter touch on the percussion. Think about the "band" that's playing here. It's all pretty light stuff: piano, bass, violins. But then you have this guy sitting in the back just wailing on these drums; heavy snare, tons of crashes. It's overpowering and it's stealing focus. The drum writing and sequencing is great, but the sounds and mixing don't fit. Needs work. NO

This is a little too straightforward of an arrangement. Very short as well. All of the horn section sounds very mechanical and honestly those samples aren't doing you any favors. The piano solo is great though. I hate to compare but OC ReMix honestly already has a live big band version of this song that we posted 17 years ago that brings a lot more to the table in terms of arrangement and production quality. This needs a lot of work. Greg's right in that the piano here is a HUGE strength. Focus in on that. NO

Very sad. Great music.

I WAS WRONG! Was in 32-bit. Sorry!

I mean, that thread is nearly 4 years old and references FLStudio 11. I'm on 20 and it works. Join me in my parallel universe dude.

I have 64-bit FLStudio running right now and my SF2 soundfonts are working. I don't think there's an issue with SF2 support in FLStudio.

Am I missing something? I'm fairly certain FLStudio supports SF2 in the Fruity Soundfont Player. Did support change recently? I still have a lot of projects that use SF2s that still work.

Hey man, what are you doing? What's going on? Everyone in this topic is discussing DAWs that use sheet music and you're posting strange off-topic complaints. Do you have something to contribute in this topic with regards to DAWs that use staff notation as a way of writing the MIDI data or what?

I totally get what Deia is saying but I think structurally the ostinato pattern is really anchoring the piece while everything swirls around it. Really delicate work, especially in the upper register. A piece like this could really drown in reverb, but you've managed to keep the clarity. Nice work. YES

Really nice take on the source tunes. Never heard this OST before, it's pretty good. Live performances are great and as a result, I feel like the sequenced strings are being exposed, especially the lower marcato stuff. I think you'd have done better to lean on your wind players in that regard. Either way, it's still way above the bar. I like it! YES

Great take on a great source. The syncopated section around 1:40 really makes you sit up and pay attention. Nice contrast to the straightforward style of the original. Really clean sounding. Love it. YES

Really good. Good soundscape and texture. Nice take on the source. YES

Performance is a little loose, but not in a bad way. A pretty straightforward folksy medley of snowy Mario songs. I think that transitions are missing though. Going from source to source is a pretty sudden shift each time. Tambourine really cuts through the soundscape. Hard to pin this one down. I'll come back to it after other Js vote.

Love the textures and soundscape here. Really beautiful. YES

I never played this game as a kid but I know a ton of people love it. I feel like those people are going to lose their shit when they hear this remix. This is really good! Really dense, but things balance out nicely. I don't feel like anything is getting lost, and nothing feels too exposed. You gotta be careful when doing the sleigh bells thing, but these sit in the mix really nicely. Killer performance. Great solo. Very uplifting. YES!

Really nice development throughout. Love those low tremolo strings. Lots of tension. Ys

Really straightforward, lots of presence. Good performances. YES

The mix on this track is really hot. Wish the bass was a little meatier. I think the sample-usage here is too much of an issue, and I don't think it's a simple matter of just pulling out the voice clips. Like Justin pointed out, some of the sections here really rely on the voice clips. More than just removing voice clips, there needs to be some trimming. It also sounds like the source track is directly sampled; that's a big issue. I feel bad saying NO on this because there are some baller-ass breakdowns that I am 100% on board for, and overall I love the whole texture and vibe of the track. I don't mind the fakey-sounding samples; I think it just contributes to the synthetic sound of the whole thing. But I gotta say no on the sample usage grounds. It's an issue that we just can't get around. NO

I'm with Larry and MW on this one. It's a long song but things continue to evolve and stay fresh throughout. I don't feel like this track ever wears itself out. Nice atmosphere. Really relaxing. YES

Really don't understand the complaints about that SNES-style vox. It sounds great with the melodic line it's on and for me, it evokes the music from the five towers in the opening act of Terranigma, which is great. Performances are great, lots of energy and variation. I'm good with this one. YES

This is a killer track. I'm really not feeling the complaints about the repetition. The percussion stays fresh, the syncopation rocks, and I dig the whole texture with the strings and synths. I will co-sign one complaint though: that fadeout is no good. I use fadeouts all the time and I will go on the record in saying that this is the wrong way to do a fadeout. Let's break it down: The fadeout is only 4-bars long. This is really bad in a song that relies a lot on groove. It's just too short of a fadeout. The volume drops significantly, right on the downbeat. It sounds like it's just a single-curve with no adjustment to the tension (i.e. it's just...linear). Despite the song fading out, you can still hear when it ends. Why fadeout at all? Here's how I'd fix it: a song like this needs a fadeout of at least 8 bars. I would do 12. Use a double-curve with the tension adjusted so that the fadeout is VERY gradual when it starts, then drops out faster, and then returns to a gradual fade into silence. In FLStudio it looks like this: And while the fadeout is happening, just solo/doodle in your lead over your vamping rhythm section. This gives the impression that the song is continuing, but ALSO that it's not REALLY important to hear the rest. I wanna vote YES on this but I'm gonna say NO. That fadeout is really jarring. Let's fix it up and get this resubbed, fast-tracked, and posted.

Spent too much time on this game as a kid. I like this track but I have some issues. The delay effect on the trumpet reminds me a lot of Thievery Corporation, which I love, conceptually. But I feel like the problem with the trumpet line is that it all sounds slurred. Need some stronger articulation not just on the attack, but also on the RELEASE of the notes. I get what kind of sound you're going for here but the timing on the trumpet's really gotta be tighter. There's a sloppiness to the performance that's really exposed by the delay; all the flubs are amplified. Performances were good but I feel like the bassline and the kick+snare got lost in the hats and cymbals. Could use some attention on the mixing/levels. NO, resub

I feel like this is what people think when they hear the words "video game remix." This a very cute song with a lot of substance to it. Piano is killer. SFX are used REALLY well. I love how everything locks together. As for the strings at 2:42, I do agree with MW a little. What you wanna do when you've got a string sample with a long attack like that is to just have it trigger just a few milliseconds before the downbeat. Not sure what DAW you're using, but for FLStudio users this would amount to turning off snap and dragging all of the string patterns slightly to the left in the playlist. That way you get a string lead that doesn't sound like it's slightly anemic. BUT None of that is a dealbreaker in this track. I'm really into this. Great job. YES

My feelings essentially. I think there's enough connecting this to the source to be okay for me. I'm a fan. YES

I absolute LOVE the timeshifting of the melody. A fantastic and effective way of recontextualizing the melodic line without really altering it all that much. Plus during the chorus when things line back up with how they are in the original, you really feel like you've arrived. This is great. Great textures, fun ideas. YES