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The arrangement here is not much more than a sound "upgrade" of the original. I put upgrade in quotes because the texture doesn't really work here; your leads come across as very shrill at times and the balance between instruments is off. That white-noise snare's sustain is just too long and sticks out. The arrangement basically just goes through the motions. I agree with the comments about the 2:25 section; quite creative, and I think that if you grabbed a hold of that and took the song further into that kind of dreamier, atmospheric texture, you'd be onto something. Give it some thought. As it stands now, though, I'm gonna have to say NO.

Yeah, Jon nailed it. This song doesn't really have a purpose except to meander aimlessly over drumbeatz. Like Vinnie said, there's no direction at all. Add to that the fact that the entire soundscape is harsh and everything is mechanically sequenced and I'm left not knowing where to begin with fixing it. You and I have discussed what it means for a song to have direction and cohesion before, and I've shown you examples, so try to take that to heart before sending another piece our way, because what Jon said was right; thusfar, your submissions have all suffered from the same basic, fatal flaws. NO

The opening beats remind me of ziwtra's Blue (Shooting Star Mix), which is not a bad thing. I agree with Vinnie though; while I absolutely love chromatic percussion, I think that you could use some variation in your lead instrument. I felt like I kept waiting for this song to open up with a more expansive sound with some kind of sustained synth handling the melody. The song kind of felt like it was on auto-pilot after a while. Certainly a pleasant auto-pilot, but auto-pilot nonetheless. I'd like to see a refined resub of this, but maybe we can leave this mix up for more votes? I can see other joojes giving this the BIG Y. NO refine resub

Timing in the harpsichord is really sloppy at points. There's not a lot of balance between instruments and everything else sounds really mechanical. Violin sample's weak attack really gets exposed. You need better samples dood. I get kind of a Danny Elfman vibe from this around the middle, which is cool, but its really lacking in the execution department. Work on humanization and balance. NO

Yeah agreed with Larry. This is just a cover of the originals. Fun, but not nearly interpretive enough. NO

Yeah I'm just going to close this out by saying that you gotta make the stuff you submit here YOUR arrangement, not someone else's, even if it is from an official source. Anyway this is a fun track, but it's way too close to the original. Larry and 'Illi basically hit all the pertinent points, so there's no point in reiterating. Nice job, but NO. Hope to hear from you again in the future though.

Yeah I gotta agree with Larry's latest comments; when you switch gears the song really loses something; I think it's that percussion you're using. It's a really weak snare sound, and I think that after listening to it more, the conservative of the arrangement gets exposed there. I kind of like the overcompressed sound the percussion has starting out. Anyway it's not bad, but I think you could do more in terms of interpretation; some more original lines and countermelodies would help. NO, resub

I think this ended up sounding like the music equivalent of a page filled with doodles; good ideas, but underdeveloped. I agree that you need to get a little more creative with your writing and try to really expand on the source. I like the old school electro sound, but make sure you don't end up sounding like you're just trying a whole bunch of different presets. Choose some sounds and work with them; don't fall into the trap of trying to constantly change up the lead to a brand new instrument everytime the melody is iterated. Anyway it's not a bad sounding piece but it still needs work. NO

Gotta agree; this needs to have a meatier sound. Vinnie is right; the whole soundscape is thin; you need to have more than just a gated lead, pads, and oompah bassline. I don't think the transition to the breakdown section was too bad, except that once the breakdown starts, things get THINNER sounding. The percussion sounds like it's run through a hi-pass filter at points. Needs work. nO

Hey guys just so you know I'm going to be going by Darke Sword now. MIND THE GAP

What exactly is verbatim?

Drums are pure boom-chick-boom-chick; zyko's right, they're very weak. WHERE ARE THE HI-HATS? Maybe I just can't hear them, but kick, snare, and ride isn't cutting it. I'll also agree that the texture is really flimsy. There's an emptiness that's pervading this mix; I think it has to do with the thin sound of the synth guitars. They need to be a lot beefier. Plus everything else supporting it sounds like an old SNES game. Not really helping in terms of a substantial texture. I dunno man, hit the EQ and fill out those drums. NO

Clipping is HORRIBLE in this. WHYYYYY? That said I think the arrangement is great and I think that working within the boundaries of the chord progression works. This is Maridia through and through; Jesse's right, it follows the typical structure of jazz: head, solo, head. Considering the nature of the source tune, I'd hazard to say that the chord progression is one of the defining aspects of the Maridia song to begin with; I mean we're not talking about something as ubiquitous as I vi IV V here. I think I can only name one other song off the top of my head that goes up a tritone, and that's because I just remixed it (Into the Thick of It). I think this is wonderfully chill, and a great take on the source. YES, conditional. Fix the clipping.

Eh, it's Bach, it's public domain, and it's stylistically similar. Isn't a lot of Castlevania music inspired by Bach's stuff anyway? Anyway I think the track is pretty rockin'. The organ sample's not great, but it fits into a supporting role quite nicely; never too exposed. If the Bach stuff in the beginning warrants a veto, then I'm fine with that, but to be honest, I don't really believe that it's an issue in this particular case. Nice. YES

This is exactly what this song needed. Freakin' great man. I love the break down at 1:45. MORE PLEASE!

Yeah. PlayStation d-"pad" sucks too. Why the hell is that middle part underneath the controller case?

I just watched all of Kamichu this weekend. Amazing supernatural slice-of-life series. A few episodes actually got me tearing up. It's got all the charm of a Miyazaki film with none of the pretentiousness.

Yeah it's pretty amazing, isn't it? When the beta was out, I tried it with Thicket and was totally diggin' it.

No, we removed one of his mixes during lockdown because the source music wasn't originally from a video game, but from the Sailor Moon anime. Dave never posts anything of his own to the panel.

I'm sorry, I don't really see the problem. That looks AWESOME. How do I get mine to do that?

Never. In fact, when my own music gets posted to OCR, I never listen to it ever again.

Man what is it with you and headphones?

Feel free to ignore Arek. He's the resident internet-cool-guy.

And you know this because..........? Don't worry man, I won't tell pixie.

Sorry, but that's total bullshit as far as WIP forum is concerned. The WIP forum is one of the most important aspects of the site that simply does not get enough attention because it's buried in the forums. OCR is about the remixes, and the WIP forum is for the development of upcoming artists and their remixes. Top-level link would be great Dave.