Hemophiliac   Judges ⚖️

(Project Track for the Lufia 2 Album) It's been a while, no time like the present to submit this track (along with one other contribution to the Lufia project of mine). This is one of my oldest arrangements to post on OCR (with only the Bionic Commando track I contributed being older by a few months), having started work on it in... 2009. Yes, this is an old one, but it's still to this day one of my favorites, and honestly I can hardly wait to finally show this one off to folk. Got the idea from one of Tyler Heath & Zircon's old Chrono Trigger arrangements (When All Hope has Faded), thought the blend of Orchestra and synths was an idea worth expanding on. Today that's not exactly novel, but back then I didn't hear too many folk blending it like that so I wanted to take a crack at it myself, using synth mixing techniques like gating to samples folk more often try to make as realistic as they can. The arrangement was finished well over a decade ago, but it took a long time for my production skills to catch up with the idea. Samples probably didn't age all that well (Reason heads may recognize Orkester's supremacy in this arrangement), but they work plenty well enough for this arrangement's purpose. In fact outside of the Triangle wave being pulled from Super Audio Kart and the kick being created in Vital most of the instruments are from what was freely available in Reason 5, just remixed (in the traditional sense of the word) and polished to a shine over a decade. There really is something lost when someone gains experience, learning what works and what doesn't, since this arrangement goes places that I probably wouldn't go today that I still really enjoy. I do hope to unlearn some of my tendancies to play it safe someday to get back to some of my weirder, more experimental roots, but in the meantime we've got this ReMix to enjoy! Games & Sources Game: Lufia 2 Source: Theme of Tower

This one is just a straight cover on slightly different instrumentation. Percussion is different, but midi covers with percussion is not what we're looking for. The track is also very loud and clipping throughout the track with audible artifacts. Sample quality is not ideal as well as they are low quality and unrealistic. We're really wanting to hear your own take on the source with your interpretation, not just a cover. For example, you could consider adding countermelodies, embellishment on the source melody, or 100% brand new sections. Those and more are all valid ways to show us your own take on the track. NO

This is a neat little dance track. Fairly well produced and the source usage is clearly dominant. You do a good job of varying the feel up so it doesn't get too static. I like the genre transformation as well. However, the major issue is that the second half of this track is basically the same as the first half if not an identical copy. I'm not noticing anything different to distinguish it from the first half. While not bad, the beat could use more variation within a section as well. Fills do a great job in this regard and also help with transitions (outside of having to rely on a cymbal crash every time). The second half repeat is really the singular major issue that should be addressed. With either the introduction of new material or removing the repetition/reuse I could see this passing. For now, it's not ready yet. NO

Prophetik did an incredible job articulating the issues on this. So I won't rehash the same points I had as well. I agree with him. I have to start out by mentioning that I liked the idea of doing a reharmonization. I especially like the changes for the chorus, the bass motion (the walk-up) in particular really works for me. However, the chord choices themselves don't really seem to work and fully support what's going on melodically in the voices. Solo was creative but needs work on the rigidity of the sequencing to feel more human. It feels fake in performance, but the tone could be considered to be more convincing and real sounding. When the final chorus starts we get a huge step up in terms of energy in the drums. While I agree this is the right time to step up the energy, the blasting of the kick is not working for me here, and I think that's purely a mixing/production issue (not part writing). The drums are much too loud and forward in the mix here. The production on this is very messy and does need to be addressed. The parts don't sound like they're in the same room with each other, and the vocalists sound unsupported. Their performances sound ok, but just don't sit in the mix with everything else. When all of the parts are playing together they're fighting with each other for space rather than working together to create a single whole. Decide what should be foreground, middle-ground, and background and use the mix to inform the listener what we should be focusing on. Some good ideas here, but the execution of the mix and sequencing did not work out. NO

Heavily suspect AI usage. If not, this heavily samples and relies on source audio. That alone is cause for rejection. There's also audible clipping throughout and is pushed super loud. 5.3 peak! NO

The sequencing of the orchestral elements is not half bad here. In particular, the brass short articulations were executed well. Strings sound like they really could use greater variation in round robins, and the solo violin was heavily exposed. But really not the worst I've heard before. The overall arrangement is fairly conservative structurally sticking very close to the original with a few melodic embellishments. The choice of embellishments was good, but more expansion on structure would have been nice as well. More of your own ideas would be welcome and less Wily 2 is what I'm saying. More variation and development of your ideas, and less repetition and similarity to the source. The major problem is that the track then crossfades into the source in the final 1/3 of the track. Now, there's nothing wrong with, crossfading into another genre that you had created or using a simple chiptune sound to solo or improvise over the orchestra; for example. But utilizing the original source audio directly (or recreated nearly identically) is not acceptable. NO

Strongly suspect this entire track is actually generative AI and no arrangement/ownership was done by it's "creator". That alone gives this a NO WAY IN HELL vote. Really don't care for this track at all, the whole thing is over-compressed. Every kick drum sounds like a trash can filled with the carcasses of actual music fed into a trash compactor. This sounds like clipping and artifacting to me without actually clipping because the peak of the track is -1.9db. Tons of headroom, but this extremely loud kick is exhausting to listen to. High end of the percussion has the over-compressed slosh sound. Also there's an extremely hard cut at 15kHz because the AI stuff was trained on lossy material and lacks high end fidelity. Source usage is questionable to me. There's a similar pattern to the rhythm from the source but I barely make the connection. NO

Arrangement aspects of this are in a good place. I applaud the changes made to the original to make this your own, there's a lot of really interesting things going on. With that in mind I would like to see some more development of the melody some as well as variation in the percussion within any given section. The fade out ending isn't great, but not a deal breaker by itself. The improvised soloing in the 1:36 is nice, I'm not 100% sold on a few of the phrases here but it gets the job done. The guys already laid this out pretty well. So I'm not going to rehash a ton of it. The major downfall of this is the production. From sound/sample choices and mixing are low quality. I don't even know why there's a dip in the 2kHz range either. There's a ton of mud in the low end and overall a general lack of clarity. Establish clarity between the parts and a more fullness of sound. Neat ideas, but very much lacking on the production side. NO

Clearly there is not enough source usage in this track, it's an original track with a couple quotes from Zelda. Liontamer's breakdown is accurate. By itself that is no. Even if you are being truthful that the vocals are Ace Studio, they fall into the uncanny valley and are not realistic. It took time to add in breath sounds, but there's a few times where a word will blend right into the next word without a break. No time was taken to craft them into a believable performance. The vocals sound over-processed and super pitch corrected into an inhuman perfection. The percussion sounds over compressed and cymbals are sloshy. NO Now, I want to address the question I had previously asked you in the submission thread. At that time you said that the vocals were generated by Ace Studio. This is a non-generative AI virtual instrument. Our policy does allow for that. However, on your YouTube upload you state that they were Suno AI. Suno IS generative AI, and is not allowed. So either you've willfully lied to us and were disingenuous, or you really don't care about what you're doing and don't care about AI theft. Both avenues are not a good look. I personally think you're not being truthful and did not perform anything in this, it sounds entirely generated to me. From vocals, drums, bass, guitars, everything. If I'm wrong, and if that's the case I'll be glad to eat crow. However, they all still sound unreal and inhuman as well as poorly produced. Please rethink your approach to music if you consider submitting to OCR. This is not the place for AI content.

As my fellow judges have already stated, there's not much going on here other than the original source with some different synth choices going on. This is not something we're looking for here, we want to see more of your own ideas developed rather than just the source with new instrument choices. Variation of drums, adding embellishment to the melody, or completely new original material...anything at all to call it your own with your own spin on it is good. This feels incomplete and unfinished. The ending just suddenly cuts off as well. Doesn't seem intentional The production is lacking clarity as well. The samples/synths are filling up so much space it's difficult to make out what's going on behind them. Wither that's due to reverb, long releases, or just pool level balancing between parts it's all contributing to a large wash of sound that adds mud and dilutes the clarity of the track. The style is interesting and I could see this being a early 2000s trance-vibe, but as it is right now this is not ready. NO

This feels and sounds like a more modernized version of the original source. The ability to recreate all of that from scratch is impressive. However, there is a lot of similarity to the original source making this very conservative. Well, that's not what we're looking for in arrangements. I'd like to see more development of the source into more of your own interpretation. Right now this is very close to a cover. Even stepping away for a contrasting section that changes up the texture for a bit would be a good way to vary it up some. Give us more things like the synth guitar at 1:43 and the final 15 seconds of the piece. This is where I see sigtau coming through and less of the original, give us more sigtau! The production is mostly fine as I didn't catch anything egregious standing out to me. On that front I felt like the synth bass was weak and could support the piece more, but this by itself was not a dealbreaker. The drop at 1:57 into the transition was cool! The main issue is the similarity of arrangement to the source and how conservative it is. I could see this developing into more, but as of right now it's not ready. NO

Initially got worried by this intro because these opening vocals are delicate and don't seem to be landing directly on the note (the pitch, but you do immediately correct yourself). Fortunately this is just an understated intro to set the mood. Once we get past that, we're launched into the stratosphere in the Epoch. Gotta say, production on this one is fantastic. The balance of parts is especially well done and the drums are killer. Overall the structure is mostly the same as the original, which is fine. The devil's in the details on this one. The countermelodies and embellishments are highlights for me, such as at 1:18-1:20 (sounds like a synth panned right). Adding an extra few bars for transition at 1:01-1:04 was great. The 3:03-3:21 new material was excellent, that's the kind of stuff we love to see here. I'd like to see some more of that in the future. This is a semi-conservative but fun arrangement with some personalization. The instrumental performances are strong and the production is excellent with some of the best drum mixing I've heard in a while (live drums do wonders!). Great work Triple B and crew! YES

First off I wanted to say that I think there's a cool idea here. Translating this to piano and cello to start feels like a no-brainer, but the idea works very well. When the other parts come in (bass, drums, strings, and guitar) at 1:15 this feels more fleshed out as a potential idea for a track. The guitar in particular is the best sounding element in this track with reverb and delay on it, and has a fitting tone for the track. Where this falls is the execution of production and the closeness to the original source tune. Adding the additional band parts is a step in the right direction, but it's still just the same melody and structure around that. More expansion and development of that idea and with more of your own ideas is the way to go. Production/sequencing leaves us with something much to be desired. We're really lacking the human feel here. It's all ice-cold perfectly sequenced with repeated velocities in the piano with line-locked rigid timing early in the piece. Humans don't play the exact same dynamic/velocity from note to note. There will always be miniscule differences between them. The timing won't fall exactly on the beat every single time. The cello sample in particular sounds very low quality and cuts off suddenly when it's done at 0:41. Almost feels like there's no reverb on the piano or cello to help with realism. Drum fill on the toms at 1:41 is awkwardly out of time. There's over a minute of silence at the end. Please double check your submission before sending it in next time. Once again, would love to see further development of your own ideas and expansion upon the source and not just a conservative arrangement on new instruments. The production should also be looked at for more realism with attention paid to humanization of the parts. It's a cool vibe, but not ready for OCR. NO

Very emotive performance here. Absolutely fitting in with the rest of the "Reflections" series that you have been doing. This is a nostalgia of positive feelings. There's some interesting decision making here that was unexpected. The first is at 1:01, the chord change here is unexpected but in a good way. Deceptive cadence that extends the phrase out just a little bit more before giving a more stable resolution at 1:04. The second is the direct modulation at 2:58. This was unexpected and unprepared, but handled well. The modulation catches your ear as it signals a new section and gives a contrasting feel. Bold choices like this can be rewarding when handled well, and you absolutely handled it well. Dramatic rubato and syncopation late into the piece really energize and uplift of the climax just before the key change as well. I understand your concern for this being conservative but this does not feel that way to me at all. There's a lot of personalization in the performance and expression that's not present in the original. Not to mention the lack of orchestration around it, this is a piano reduction after all. Great evolution and storytelling over the course of the piece backs up the strong performance. YES

I do remember this track and from what I can recall this is a much better execution of the articulations and sample usage. The string arpeggios in particular are much better now, and while not perfect; are much more convincing. Still could have some greater dynamic range through the piece, but what's here is fine. Nitpick for this version: the triangle sounds very forward mixed and should be pushed to the back with the rest of the percussion so it sits behind the orchestra. Just like how the percussion is normally positioned on a stage. Arrangement is still really cool. Nice work on making improvements and giving attention to the fine details. YES