DarkeSword   Administrators 🎮

Machine-gunning harp articulations with an accidental passing note sounds pretty bad at :13. Pretty ethereal throughout, though it begins to wear on the listening about halfway through. I don't feel like there's enough development here; a lot of this mix is just plodding eighth notes filling in the spaces swelling pads and strings. The punchy, bright piano doesn't help because it jars the listener out of the smooth pads. There are some weird dissonant bits here and there, and like the piano they break the flow of the song. I don't think they work. I suppose this is more cohesive than your other work, but it still suffers from meandering development. NO

Is that DarkeSax? I can't really tell. Anyway yeah, this piece is pretty hot. Great beats, great groove. The drop-offs and build-ups work really well. I'm a little sketchy on the snare sound, but that's more of a personal gripe. Lots of energy here, very cool. YES

I think the fakey-ness of the sounds works in this piece. I also don't think using drumloops like this is an issue; the percussion sits nicely in the soundscape and seems to be sliced and retriggered at points, which keeps things fresh. I don't have a problem with that at all. Great texture, very groovy. It gets a little repetitve and the intro is a bit long, but that's not a dealbreaker for me. YES

Personally I think this is fine the way it is. You never linger too long on an idea but still give ample time to allow them to develop. The synth design isn't ground breaking or anything, but it creates a nice texture that gets the job done. I also really love the bits where you start gating the melody. Great job. YES

Sounds like it's amplified through a cardboard tube. It's pretty muffled. I like the scratches, but the rest of the song sounds kind of empty, especially around 1:33. There's a lead there somewhere, but it's so nebulous sounding. Guitar stuff after that sounds really lo-fi. There's a lot of sparseness in this mix; aside from the guitar, everything is pretty weak and subdued sounding. Try for a bigger sound (open chords, meatier bass, etc) NO, resub

Wow, really tricky. I like the texture; it's lo-fi without being shitty. xD Very interpretive; great groove. I like it. YES

This is more of a transcription than an arrangement, to be honest. It's good, but it needs way more in terms of reinterpretation and reimagination. Bring more of yourself to the table, move the themes into other styles, and have some fun with rhythm. This feels so run-of-the-mill as far as piano pieces go. NO

This sounds way cleaner than last time, so nice job there. I gotta agree that you need to embellish the source more. Step out of the box rhythmically and syncopate this bitch. D: Countermelodies will help too. I like the part at the end; the tempo changes are really great. Just needs a little more and you'll be there. NO (superborderline, plz resub)

Man, 1:22 is just too short. This is fantastic but it doesn't really feel all that developed. :\ MOAR PLEZ NO

Yeah, I have no real problems with this. Fun house-y track. The kick might have a little too much presence, but that's a personal gripe. Very groovy and very fitting of the SoR soundtracks. Nice job! YES

The SFX in the beginning and end lasted too long. The rest of the sound design was pretty bland and the drums were really repetitive. Things got way too crowded at 2:27 with the unison synths. Far too buzzy a texture. A good effort, but it's just too straightforwards and your sounds are really bland. Try not to rely on the effects like phasing and flange too much and concentrate more on part-writing. NO

Wow this source is pretty hot. Not a bad remix. Can we get a longer version? I'd like to hear some more expansion. This thing clocks in under 3 minutes; I feel like you could do a lot more. You should also thing about changing up the lead once in a while, have it trade off a little. Some more dynamics in the arrangement would be great. The place you end could be the perfect lead-in to a soft section. NEED MOAR NO, resub/rework

Yeah. This is a great piece of music, but it's just not enough in terms of the kind of arrangement we're looking for. You've taken what is a pretty tiny source to begin with and distilled it further into just the two chords and then you've got your own melodies over top of it. I'm sorry, but at that point, it's not much of an arrangement of the original song anymore. Great ideas, but ultimately it strays too far. NO

This is great. Very emotive; I love the piano and harp. Voices are appropriately used; nothing over the top. I've always wanted to try this song in this style and now I don't have to, because you did it so well for me. Nice work. Dynamics are great, progression is great. I wish there was a little more brass, but that's just me. xD YES

Wow man, huge improvement over your other stuff. I'm totally impressed here. Very cohesive, rockin' arrangement. The texture and blend of sounds perfectly captures the essence of Kirby; he's a plinky-piano cute creampuff, but he's also a axe-rockin' badass hero. Very nice. <( ¯^¯)> YES

Nice texture, but pretty much on cruise control the whole time, as evidenced by the percussion and that one pervasive arpeggio. I agree with Larry, the voice in the middle is cheesy as hell and really detracts from the entire song. Maybe if you vocoded it with some chords you'd lose some of the cheese, but as it is now it's no good. Hey I recognize that gating pattern at 2:40! Come on man, at least mess with it a little, rather than just using FL's default chop pattern. In the end there are some additive and subtractive appoaches to arrangement, but it's fairly repetitive throughout. I think some more evolution would help; we see a little of that near the end but it's too little too late. :\ Not bad; I realize it's 4 years old, but it's worth revisiting. Maybe do a 2008 mix or something. NO

Pretty cool, but those drums that sound cool when the start off end up sounding dry and a little too exposed in the soundscape. Some light reverb might help. Interesting stuff with the lead's pitch bends and harmonies. The bassline is too deep and rumbly and ends up sounding like a warbly drone. Try to define it a little more. Also, I'm really not a fan of the hard panning in that tom drum at 2:17. It cuts through the soundscape in a bad way and really exposes itself. All in all though, certainly not a bad arrangement here. THere are some great ideas worth further exploring. Keep at it! You've got the touch! NO

It's certainly an amazing effort recording all those vocals, but I think from a balance standpoint you're still out of whack. The low piano and strings are crowding that low end stuff, and the vocals end up flooding the whole soundscape. I feel like I'm standing in the middle of the choir rather than the choir standing in front of me; in other words the balance and panning feels off. Things get a little harmonically wonky around 1:52. I think the strings+piano in unison (which isn't all that effective anyway) is clashing with the vocals around there. Despite the scope, this really lacks a big epic sound. It sounds too much like it's its in a small room, rather than something expansive and sweeping. I haven't heard the original Enya piece, but I think that despite your attempts to emulate it, you should allow yourself to move beyond that template and really develop this piece a little more in terms of the arrangement. NO EDIT: EXTRA ADVICE

A little too much reverb on that whistle, don't you think? The droning low chords are putting me to sleep too. When the strings and brass come in at 1:31, I'm already gone. Everything sounds so lo-fi and muddy and the weak attacks on your samples aren't really helping either. You could have tried to do some interesting things with the guitar, instead of just relying on it for strumming. Other than that, there's just not enough expansion here. It just goes through the melody a few times and ends. That whistle at the end is also horribly out of tune. It sounds like you tried to make this really emotive, but it just came off as lifeless and plodding. You need to spice it up a little. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly has some very emotive songs in its score (i.e. Ecstacy of Gold); if that's what you're trying to emulate, you really should try to go beyond what you've got here. NO

Reverb in the opening causes a lot of dissonant clashing in that analog synth. Drums are too dry and exposed as well. A drone is not a viable bassline in this case. Detache strings are out of place in this soundscape and only show up for a little while before disappearing again. There's just not enough going on here. Apeggiators in the second half were welcome, but they just end up going through the motions like everything else. NO

I was a little iffy with the way this piece was going, but then the congas came in and I was like "oh, hot." This is definitely a Tetris Attack mix though; it's got a very "cute" sound to it, that fits with a Panel de Pon game. Those pizz strings add a nice flavor to the texture. Very dynamic percussion. I like this a lot. Very cool. YES

Swimming in reverb, which I guess makes sense stylistically, but when your piano stuff comes in, it's a little too much residual stuff mixing together. I love the bass in this though. I think you need to expand the arrangement a lot though; you could really nail that 80's B-movie feel if you brought in some percussive ideas (think the drum fill and subsequent pattern from Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight). Evolution in a piece like this is key, and I don't think you have enough yet. Keep at it. NO

Yeah I like this, it's pretty wild, but your is killing me. You need to EQ this shit. I also agree with Andy concerning the rhodes chords; it sounds interesting when it starts, but nothing really locks in with that major sound and it comes off dissonance that doesn't work. NO, resub

That drumloop pretty much killed this song for me by the 1:00 mark. Nice interpretation, but I don't feel like you did enough with it in terms of part-writing. It's all very simple; arpeggios in the harpsichord and some strings on the upbeats. Very boxed in. You used a groovy drumloop; try to bring that rhythm into the rest of the song for something a little more interesting. Not bad, but not great either. NO, resub

Yeah, the drumbeat is obviously a faster loop that's been sliced and tempo-matched; it's pretty repetitive and actually doesn't seem to change at all throughout the piece until halfway through, but then it's just replaced by some more repetitive beats. This whole song sounds pretty stiff and plodding. There's not much interesting stuff going on aside from the stuff during the transitions. The song just sounds like it's on autopilot. NO