Hemophiliac   Judges ⚖️

Fairly straightforward adaption of the source here, but with a ton of personalization in the details. Love all of the melodic embellishment that goes on throughout. The synth that is layered in with the guitar is SUPER fitting. It blends in so well. I figure it was there to help hide the fact that the guitar is vst and not real, but that was executed very nicely. Awesome that you bust out the violin to shred some on there yourself. There was a couple notes here and there that felt ever so slightly behind, but it didn't really bother me. It just helps it feel more human against the sequenced parts in the background. Nice work, production was clean and LOUD. Nice work. Fun ride. YES

A strength of this is that despite it being simple and doesn't have much variation in the actual patterns played. There is always something changing up the texture so it doesn't just seem identical to what just preceded it. The intro bass (0:15) doesn't have the same octave leap up as the source, but still feels like the original because the rhythm is the same, and has the same phrasing. The genre adaption was done well, and the interpretation was unexpected. Very neat idea. The turntablism is awesome. My only real complaint is the sax didn't sound great, especially with it just being repeated notes. It was more exposed than the other elements as well, more wet on the reverb could have helped it blend in more. That said, this was rad and unexpected. YES

This is great, love the genre transformation from the original to this. Downtempo and chill really fit the source well. The production has a nice warmth without feeling blown out or muddy, great work on keeping it clean. The compressor pumping has it's toe on the line of being too much without stepping over and feeling obnoxious. I really liked the original section from 1:36-2:00. Fit in like a glove to the rest of everything else. Changing between sections of this track could have used simple/small drum fills or some kind of transitional effect would have been nice to have -- extra ear candy, but not necessary. Could loop this one for a while. YES

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 is like mad-scientist in a laboratory on Halloween music. Dark, trance-like, and heavy. As expected the production is excellent and the source is well represented with plenty of mo's signature sound in between usage of source. I would've liked to have seen more melodic development of the theme over such a long track, but what's here is fine. There's plenty of playing with time and rhythm within the source usage to make it your own that it's not an issue. Production is super clean as I would expect from anything that Chimpazilla touches. And no ultra-highs stabbing me in the ears this time! (mo.organ knows what I mean) :D Nice work! YES

This is very cool, I personally don't like the genre very much but I enjoyed this one. It's short but gets the job done. Feels better produced then the Million Dollar track you referenced as inspiration as well. I do agree with prophetik on the leads being simple, but it's not a dealbreaker for me as they get changed between sections and don't overstay their welcome. In the future, I'd recommend using some modulation (of any kind) on them to help them move and add interest to them. The source is clear to me and there's plenty of great personalization not only in genre adaption but in soloing. 1:24 synth guitar was an example of new part writing that fit in with the track. Excellent transitions at 0:54 and 1:50. Nice work Seth! Fade out on such a short track isn't great, but feels appropriate for the genre for some reason. YES

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

This one feels more like a riff-based approach compared to previous works I've heard from you guys. I found the approach to be very surgical in the chopped-up nature of the source usage. You might want to use some cautery on that riff, it's leaking BLOOD. 2:14 the vocal grunge held note crossing into the guitar pinch squeal was absolutely rad. My initial concern with this was the amount of source usage, but after quite a few listens and going back-and-forth between arrangement and source there's plenty. I was thrown off by taking the small bits from the source and turning them into riffs to be used. It's like Frankenstein's monster, taking the best bits from the source that you liked and pieced them back together into a new amalgam of audio. Acoustic guitar section was an awesome break and contrast from the heaviness surrounding it. Transitioning back to the heavy bits was done well and felt great to get back to them after the acoustic contrast. The ending does come out of nowhere, that was disappointing. Something about either the arrangement or mixdown made the vocals feel somewhat more isolated from the other parts and less supported. Not sure which contributed specifically to that feeling, but I wanted to point it out as it was the one thing throughout the track that did bother me some. Aside from the ending, the arrangement itself was handled masterfully, the production was clean, and the performances were very nice. YES

Oh yeah, I remember this one. I think Lucas sent me this one everyday for at least 2 weeks straight to get feedback when he was initially working on it. There was a lot of potential then but still a lot of bugs to work out. I didn't get to vote or hear how the previous submission final was. This actually turned out really nice. It's one of your best produced tracks to date. There's a lot to be proud of here. I personally really like the countermelody synths, the counterpoint on them fits in perfectly all while adding your own personal touches. This really lets the source melody play out so close to the original, but adding your own spin on it. It's frankly one of my favorite things to hear in remixes. Kudos. I also agree with Emunator in that the snare is too loud. And there's a bit of lacking in terms of expression/dynamics, but not so bad that it direly hurt the track. In turn, that does make the track feel kinda cold, and that might not be the expression you wanted to get out of it. Great to see the growth from you Lucas, and the track is quite enjoyable! YES

I'm all for wild and complex, and this does not disappoint in either regard. Really had to familiarize myself with the source to dive into this one as I did not know it at all. This does feel more cold and academic than expressive at times (except for the excellent improvised bass solo). Aside from the solo, the rest of the piece at least felt like Kalle Demos and/or directly came from the source. This is a long solo and I don't recognize any source here (and is a common complaint I have on jazz pieces that have extended solos: they don't reference the source enough). Fortunately it does not take up more than half of the piece otherwise I'd not be good with this as a pass. I don't think this track would have been successful without establishing the ostinato and strong beats right out of the gate. I pretty much feel the 2:3:2 all the way through the piece and this really acts as the anchor for the whole run. Any time that is going it makes it feel like we're referencing the source somehow. I don't know how you managed that but kudos. The guitars did stand out to me more than they should have (not by much, maybe just 1-2db hot), and didn't sit in with the rest of the track as well as they could have. With that said, the rest of the track is cleanly produced and I have no other production comments. FWIW, I love the title as well, got a good laugh from me on that. It both calls out the time sig and the boss fight as well 🤣 YES

Sweet approach to this classic source. Piano focused rock is nice. I'm digging the arrangement as there's a lot of melodic personalization with embellishment and improvisation. Kudos there, this is the kind of melodic personalization I'd like to see more of in other submissions. The overall structure is pretty much the same as the source, but with the amount of improvisation and embellishment on the melody that can excuse the closeness to the source structure. As the others have pointed out, there is almost 6db of headroom available. 0:28 this guitar transition was really cool. The guitar soloing late into the track is awesome and really puts your own spin on it while not getting too far away from the source. This is the highlight of the track to me. The mix and production are the major issues here. There's a lofi or lossy quality to this piano sample used. The whole track sounds like it has a gentle high pass and low pass applied to the whole track. I think that's a contributing factor to making this sound muffled and lossy. There's also clutter in the 100-300Hz range that is contributing to an unclarity of sound overall. You've got low drums here, bass, and the left hand of the piano (and rhythm guitars somewhere?) fighting for space. When they're all going together it just clutters the soundscape and contributes to muddiness. It's awesome that you've spent so much time working on this over the years. There's some really sweet spots to this, but the production just isn't at the level we're looking for. If you need feedback or extra ears on mixing passes, I would highly encourage you to check out the discord workshop. NO

There's some atmosphere here that I do like. The upper FM synth bell, pads, and choir pad sound lovely. The vocal chops/sampling at 1:00 were a nice addition as well. I'm however not sold on the dnb elements to the piece. They feel pasted underneath everything else and don't have a cohesion to them. It's like there's two different soundscapes going on with a large divide between them. The ethereal and bright upper elements, and then the harsh and gritty bass and drums. These things don't really feel like they belong together. The b I have to bring up the repetition of the loops next. The overuse of the same loop is very repetitive and loses interest quickly. You do at least change the pattern to something else when the sections change, but within a given section it stays the same. You could slice it up or write microvariation within it to spice it up more. 2:36-2:55 is an example of this. Halfway through you add claps on top to build the energy but the rest of the pattern stays the same throughout. 3:06-3:07 has a note here that sounds out of place. 3:19 is a very spicy harmony choice and it doesn't feel fitting. So to recap, FM bells intro and outro sounded nice along with the upper elements (aside from a few dissonant harmonic choices). However, not digging the divide between upper parts and the dnb lower parts, these don't feel cohesive with each other. Too repetitive could use more variation, this would really keep the interest going on a 5 minute long track. NO

Absolutely feels like a modern Blade Runner/Vangelis piece. Suspenseful, dark, spacy, and future-retro. With contemporary production because everything is mixed forward and huge. Sounds are analog and throwback, super rad. Once the melodic material enters at 0:37, it gets used from then on out. I wonder how much of this was sequenced and how much of it is performed because the backing to the arrangement is fairly static with subtle timbral changes throughout. The ostinato doesn't have much note variation in it other than dropping out or restarting. It's the filter opening/closing that's doing the work here. Would've liked to seen more of your own personalization in terms of changing up more than just the colors that are being painted with. But the quality here isn't supposed to be that, it's an analog jam over the top of a repeating ostinato. It's short enough that it doesn't overstay it's welcome, but a bigger contrasting B section would have benefited it greatly. I could see the repetition of the ostinato being a problem for some, but the timbral changes do enough to keep it moving/changing. The ending is a bit disappointing because it does come out of nowhere with little preparation, but it is an ending. I don't really have any major issues that knock this out of being worthy of posting, but it absolutely could be more. What's here is good enough. YES

I'm going to start out with a breakdown because this is a long piece with many different sections that are quite varied in terms of feel. 0:00 - 3:00 ambience and atmosphere 3:00-3:50 chord progression from SoH 3:50-4:14 ambience 4:14-5:48 finally some semblance of the source melodic material here. this gets developed and stretched out. 5:48-6:17 ambience 6:17-7:57 more source melody here with melodic development. 7:57-8:28 ambience 8:29-10:28 ghostly faint chimes of the SoH motif in the background while huge singing bowls guide the way. 10:29 - 10:46 ambience 10:47 - 14:22 SoH motif reappears a few more times. With a lot of space in between each phrase. There's at least 10 seconds of silence at the end. That should be trimmed. Overall the majority of the source usage is in the latter portion of the piece. Cool to actually hear wood frog guiro in here during the swamp section. The first 4 minutes really is rough, because each section is very disparate from the previous. If each section had a transition like this they would feel like 6 different songs and be more medley-like. The first four minutes were also tough to piece into being Song of Healing until the melody really comes in earnest. If those first four minutes were removed from the piece the rest of it would still probably work on it's own, and still be saying everything that it set out to. So yes, those opening minutes do align with your concept, did they really serve the greater whole as a piece of music? I'll leave that up to others to decide. Towards the end I was wishing there was more subtle things going on in the background to fill out the atmosphere more. What's here is a thought-provoking concept piece that I believe was successful in being enough interpretation for OCR. It will definitely be getting the "meditation" tag when it's posted. YES

This was very well done. If something was going to beat out our track in the final round, I'm glad it was this one. I like how both sources were worked in together, especially because they are so different. It's also really funny how both entries in the compo chose to focus on the Last Soul bassline. Gotta point out the lyrics because the story told is interesting and fitting for both games as bizarre as they are in a vacuum. Vocals could have been louder in the mix, but are still clear and are mostly the focus, just want them a small step up more compared to the bass. The backing organ was a highlight for me, because it was invisibly supporting all the weight of the harmonic elements and some of the rhythm without stepping on the toes of the other parts. I'd be remiss not to point out a couple of the Easter eggs from the compo as well that people won't know about unless they were following it. Seagulls were in at least one of your team's tracks each round, out of context they're silly. The other thing was the lyric at the end: Nice callback to your team's first round entry "Only Trust Your Mix, Techniques Will Never Help You" All that said, great work bringing together something cohesive, musical, and interesting from all the chaos of the compo. Well done team SoR! YES

This was my first entry into Dwelling of Duels (May 2025) as a main. To my surprised we bronzed! I have to thank my collaborators so much as they really brought life into the arrangement I could not have. Steven Hewitt: piano prophetik music: Tenor Sax I wrote the arrangement, and did production including mix and master. (This version is slightly different than the DoD version, with a tiny bit of cleanup) Yes, it's another Stickerbush Symphony arrangement. I like to think I put my own spin on this that will make it stand out amongst the many other amazing versions out there. The biggest thing here is that the arrangement is in 9/8. It's a 3-feel but in 9/8. I didn't do anything crazy to really adapt a unique 9/8 like Blue Rondo à la Turk by Dave Brubek. I just started out the arrangement and I was liking the way it felt in 9. The next thing that popped into my head was the feel and a phrase: Smokey film noir style slow jazz. "I knew that dame was trouble the moment she walked in. She said her name was Dixie." "I grabbed my baseball cap and went out to find the missing Donkey Kong." My collaborators came about in completely opposite means. I reached out anonymously on the DoD discord server asking for a pianist who could play jazz and Steven responded to the message. He was excited by the idea and was on board. Funny enough that I (and others) had actually just enjoyed his live performance with his group Ankylo Tail at VGMCon in April. I had initially been trying to incorporate more synth into this piece and it wasn't working out how I wanted so instead I said screw it and immediately went to sax. I knew this time I wanted to ask prophetik to jump in, and he made it really easy. The grit he added to the performance was just what I was looking for in a sultry tenor sax. This one all came together rather quickly (for me) and it was a pleasure to work with Steven and Brad. I hope people enjoy! Games & Sources Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest - Stickerbush Symphony

When you say that Good Charlotte and Blink 182 were possibly influences, I agree they definitely had some factor here. This does sound like that early 2000s semi-emo rock style. I think you nailed that. It's a super fun arrangement that highlights all of the parts from the source at one time or another, and the performances are very solid. I have no issues with them. My problem is with the mix/balance. I can't understand the lyrics without following along with the written word because they are buried by the other parts. Their performance is good, no problems with any accent or enunciation issues. It's strictly balance and maybe some EQ'ing. The other parts are standing more forward to me and they cover up the vocals (except the short bit at the beginning when no guitars are playing). If the vocals were more forward featured in the mix I would likely be able to understand what is being said. Everything else in this is awesome and I wish I could give that a pass, but because the balance on the vocals effects the listening experience the whole way through I can't give it the nod. NO (resubmit)

Gotta give it to you H36T this is your most developed arrangement I've heard thus far. Really nice work to take a short source and really expand on it a lot. You keep the Chrono Trigger in the forefront meanwhile including the trademark H36T sound. Vocal samples, dramatic percussion, hand percussion, and orchestra. Despite the added material, this still feels CT dominant to me and time stamping it confirms it. The ritardando just before 2:34 was a nice touch to give some contrast as you kept building energy and dynamic levels up to the climax. Also great macro-dynamics as well because everything is covered here, from whisper quiet to near bombastic levels of loud. The climax does get hefty and dense. It's pushing the edges of what you could include before being too much. I agree with prophetik here, no one part is really carrying the lead and things are trading off and stepping in front of each other for the foreground. Maybe doubling the melodic element you wanted as a focus could help with that. It would keep the energy high but also potentially keep the source melodic focus as the primary. People will dig this and it's nice to see an under appreciated source from CT being turned into a whole new thing. YES

I really enjoyed this the first time around despite feeling under-developed and not fully realized. This has completed the rest of the pie and is a fully fleshed out idea now. The over sound design is still really nice and the atmosphere is a sunny but cloudless sky. The changes that were made in regards to design were welcome and smoothed this out. I still have no issues with the source usage as it's there, just a little difficult to pick out on the first run. 1:20 there's some new (IIRC) soft and subtle guitar added here that really adds some momentum and picks up the energy without getting too big. Dynamically, this takes us on a journey with a long crescendo throughout the whole piece as textures build and the dynamic level increases. Perfectly ambient and expressive without needing any percussion. Synths evolve and change with time and the guitar with delay keeps us anchored to the wings. Love the changes so much, I'm really glad you worked on this more and resubmitted it. Great work. YES