DarkeSword   Administrators 🎮

A terribly simplistic arrangement. There's not much going on here. Long sustained notes with a melody on top is pretty boring. The second half of this song is pretty much the same as the first except with some percussion underneath. Sounds like you discovered the chopper in FLStudio. This is really repetitive. You need to come up with ways of creating a more dynamic arrangement. At the very least, that boring intro before the percussion comes in has to go. The general sound of this piece isn't bad, but you need more variation, especially in your percussive patterns. NO

Larry's right. This is repetitive and boring. It's the same five notes over and over again, with little going on in the background to really keep things interesting. Needs way more. NO

Mechanical, muddy, and boring. The sounds are pretty amateurish, and the percussion sticks out poorly. NO

Yeah, that lead doesn't work well against the crowded soundscape. Needs something with more definition. Also, the arrangement is way too BGM-like. You just looped the same thing twice. You need actual song structure. A beginning, a middle, an end. NO edit: Just for the record guys, this is an arrangement of a song from the DS version of Advance Wars, which is an entirely separate game from the two GBA titles.

That's your problem right there. You said you've been a fan of the site for four years. You should know by now that an "enhancement" won't fly. It's essentially an upgrade of the original, with some interesting effects. Not interpretive enough. Sorry. NO

Pretty much in agreement with Larry and Andy. Opening 'old-school' sound is way off; go for closer-to-authentic NES sound. Great guitar work, but the production could be better, as per zircon's suggestions. Also, we're not looking for straight up covers here; we want reinterpretations. Play with rhythm, meter, tempo, etc. That ending is also pretty cheap. Hope to hear more from you soon. NO

Jeez man, your beats are too loud and really ruin the whole piece. Turn that shit down. The whole thing ends up sounding really empty. All you have is piano, some chromatic percussion, beats, and that lead synth. Where's the bassline? Beats like this demand a bassline working in tandem. Pads with more presence throughout the piece would be nice too. You need to bring a lot more to the table than loud beats. Arrange the music more than playing continuo lines over a chord progression. NO

It'd be nice if you actually used more of the actual Crashman theme in this song, rather than just one of the 8-bar phrases from the original with its notes altered so only the rhythm really remains. That snare is also too loud. The section in the middle with the e-piano has jack shit to do with anything and sounds like gratuitous "variation." Needs more Crashman and less repeating. NO

Piano is dry. Why? Yeah, FL defaults certainly aren't helping this piece. Slayer especially should only be used in emergencies, and only with parental supervision. Seriously though, Slayer doesn't work here, stay away from it. Arrangement is pretty repetitive and it flies right by. Needs more dynamics and varying ideas than Slayer playing a syncopated pattern ad infinitum. NO

It's odd that this piece is pretty much the same four note pattern repeating over and over again. I guess that counts as the melody? In any case, it's arranged surprisingly well. Lots of embellishements and a changing soundscape really help this piece along, especially the amazingly groovy bassline and brass countermelody that comes in after the initial brass lead-in. i liek it YES

The lead really lacks definition; it's got a really weak attack and bounces back and forth between the stereo field for no apparent reason in the beginning. Everything sounds like some permutation of a detuned saw something-or-other. I realize that this is probably the case for most electronic music (), but it's VERY apparent here; what I'm really trying to say is that the sounds all have that same buzzy quality to them which makes the texture of the song really uninteresting. This song is also, aside from the short slow middle section, lacking in dynamics. From beginning to end, its pretty much the same feel. Needs more variation in that respect. NO

I'm in agreement. The synths are generic and boring, and the percussion sticks out poorly with its incessant "bump, tsh, bump, tsh." Like zircon said, you need more practice in getting the right "wall of sound" texture going. This piece feels stratified. The arrangement is also pretty repetitive. NO

I like the progression throughout the piece. It's a very delicate arrangement that shows a lot of attention to balance. The production on this piece is excellent. I love the quick section around 2:20. Top-notch. YES

Gonna have to agree with Larry in that this is essentially an upgrade of the original tune. Groovy, yes, and I happen to like the texture, but its really similar to the original piece, not only in arrangement, but in texture. Percussion could be spiced up too. I like where this is going, but you need to bring more originality to the piece if you want to have it on OCR. NO resub

Ease up on the reverb please. :\ I like the synths and piano, really groovy. Nice arrangement too, I just think you need to balance your instruments out a little more with EQ and levels. Also, the piano is only there for a little part of the song, why? The entire piece would benefit from a stronger, continued presence. NO but please resub, this piece has a tons of potential to be more awesome.

Yeah. This is hardly orchestra. Lots of synthy sounds and a repetitive snare drum does not orchestra make. No arrangement either. Needs actual arrangement and more effort on a believable soundscape. NO

I'm in agreement with TO on this one. While I like the production on the piece, the arrangement is seriously cookie-cutter and the source takes a long time to come in. Like Vig said, this could really be any melody. NO

Golden Rain:

Strings still need a better attack; sounds like you're using slow strings on a moving line. Big no-no there, as everything ends up sounding a 32nd to a 16th note behind. Rest of the mix is fine; the part in the middle before the rocking guitar part still sounds like its meandering though, but it's not as bad as before. i liek it YES

Ending sucks. The rest of it is fine; I'm in agreement with Malcos. Everything fits together; not too separated, not too sparse. Nice guitar work and the piano is pretty flowy. Good percussion too. Good job. YES

Yeah Larry pretty much summed it up for me. The ideas here aren't as expansive as they could be. Vig mentioned bringing more complex harmonic ideas to the piece; I agree with that. This interpretation is really straighforward. A lot of the rhythmic variation here wasn't really all that different from the original. This needs more embellishment here and there, more complexity. There were some timing issues with the passing tones you added in. It sounds like you weren't sure of those notes when you played them; there's hesitation. More practice and a deeper arrangement will help. Hope to hear more from you. NO

Tip on reverb: don't make it sound like it's being played in a large concert hall. Make it sound like a recording you could play in a concert hall, and allow the concert hall to make the song sound cavernous. In other words, use just enough reverb to keep the instruments from sounding "dry" instead of trying to fill out your soundfield with residual sound. As for the arrangement, pretty nice stuff throughout, but I think that some of the brass samples are so-so, and that the percussion in that section around 2:07 sounds horribly thin and out of place. Also, your basslines don't have enough definition. This makes the song sound top-heavy. The low strings sound like a big blur of sound; they're detache, they shouldn't sound like a long "whooommooommmooomm." You need to make those low strings sound marcato. Don't rely on the sample alone; tweak the sound and work with the reverb and EQ to give it a sharper, more defined sound. Definitely a lot of skill here, but you need to work on production and presentation. NO

Please don't say off-key. It's in the key, it's just the wrong note.

Yeah, this sounds kind of muffled. Needs a better recording. I like the weird stuff you do with the meter; interesting phrasing choices. This is too short and repetitive though; I think some other FF6 material brought into the arrangement would help. More variation overall in the dynamics of the piece, really. NO

There's clipping in the guitar. Will vote later.