Hemophiliac   Judges ⚖️

My complain with the first version was that the balance between parts was off and the humanization of the samples was not ideal. The flute has been improved some by removing some of the chromatic runs, but it still needs improvement on it's humanization. The same goes for the new trumpet lead. Individual notes are static and don't have movement, as well as the line being detached and not legato. Legato samples are not a requirement to get passed, but more attention to their humanization will go a long way in improving the realism. The balance between parts is much better this time around. At 1:04 there's a piano supporting underneath, I don't recall it being in the first version. The part sounds ok, but the piano sample itself does not feel fitting for the style. This version is closer, but still not there as it's being held back by the uncanny valley. Some improvements made, but now other issues have appeared in their place. NO

When this was being worked on during the second round of GSM, I kept hearing it in bits and pieces along with various WIPS. I was very confused as to how it was going to come together because everything was so different out of context in disparate parts. To me this feels like a very multifaceted precious stone. One side is dirty and the other side is clean. So much different stuff going on when you look at it in different ways. That's the difference between the Streets of Rage parts and the Etrian Odyssey parts. I'm less clear on where the SoR stuff is in the final third of the track, but I can clearly hear the EO melody in CW's vocals. Speaking of CW's vocals, absolutely incredible! There's real power in your dark-low chest voice. I personally like the straighter tone and less vibrato, it's a more pure sound that gives me chills. I also have heard both versions of this mix and I agree the new one is improved in the balance in the back half of the song with the vocals compared to the other parts. The only disappointing thing is the ending, it's just a cut. Stunning work. Clean production, strong arrangement. YES

We were there! Sweet to hear this one live on the day, and really cool to see it now as a submission. The live recording came out really well. The drums in particular are crystal clear. Endless is invisible in the best way possible, supporting without overpowering. My only nitpick is the guitar could be louder, but really this not a problem. Fun performance, absolutely fresh take. Easy vote. YES

There's an energy here for sure, but there's many issues. This is a highly conservative arrangement. Outside of the percussion it's nearly identical to the original source. This is also repetitive to the point that it honestly gets tiresome before we even get to the 2 minute mark. The original isn't very long before it fully loops too (~50 seconds). I would suggest to add some of your own interpretation or change-up some elements from the source. Not only will that help with the repetition but it will add one of the biggest missing elements from this piece: your own unique interpretation and ideas. Having a drop at 1:40 was a good idea, but it's still just playing the same thing, just with less parts. The texture and dynamic contrast is good, but we need some new ideas! Consider adding more textural shifts later into the track or cut repeats to reduce the repetitiveness. The drums don't have much punch to them and honestly feel over compressed. In terms of sound design much of the synths are very plain and vanilla. They could be much more sophisticated and interesting sounding. I don't like to say anything straight up doesn't sound good, but the whistle that enters at 1:53 is unpleasant. Not only does it stand out, but it lasts a long while, it just keeps going and takes a while before we get a break from it. I like the energy you're trying to bring, but there's simply too many problems as is. NO

Goregous, lush, and chill. This is a great soundscape and like prophetik also said, I really appreciate how the pad does have enough attack to register on the beat and not fall behind. The opening of the music box cross-fading into the pad was very neat and I love how subtle the transition is. At 1:00 we start getting some changes to the melody and they are very good. To me they feel very tasteful as if it were almost just an alternate version of the source. 2:00 the energy picks up a little with some additional strength in the drums and stronger accents from other parts, that by itself is helping the piece propel forward without a huge dynamic shift. It feels like there's a very long and slow crescendo throughout the whole song, when we're let down by the same music box that opened up the piece with a short rolled chord. I enjoyed this for it's mellowness as well as the personalization of the melody, didn't get too far away from the source in terms of structure. However, the production is clean and the piece is lovely. YES

Once again, a lovely medley of themes that pair up very well together. And Rebecca, you have crafted and wove them together masterfully in one cohesive tapestry of sound. It's floats through the air and feels so weightless. The lack of dynamics is made up for in changing texture as well as changing sources. Things are always evolving even without much dynamic contrast or change. It's nice to see a small piece being used in the form of Cuckoo Shack. Of course, the Flute Boy as well. That one happens to be one of my favorite little tunes from LttP, I'm happy to hear it receive some coverage. I'm confused by the ending as it has a different feeling than the rest of the piece. It could be you wanted to leave the listener off on a very specific emotion, but I'm not sure what that is supposed to be. This is an artistic choice for sure, but I'm not grokking it. Altogether this is wonderfully put together with fantastic performances from Steven, GotW, and Brooke. YES

Huge heavy metal sound here. The big metal energy is definitely a highlight here. So I'm immediately recognizing the sources as each one comes up, thank you for the breakdown. However, this feels more like a medley than one cohesive song. If there was more material bridging the gap between each song with more fleshed out transitions, it would be better fitting. We get fills between each, but that's not always enough development for it to not feel somewhat sudden. This kind of medley might work well in other places, but that's not what we're looking for in arrangements here. There's a gentle low-mids to mids (~300-1.5k) range scoop and I'm feeling that the bottom end is very full. To me it's not ideal in clarity. The bottom is bigger than the leads, and my attention is more drawn there. As others have mentioned, the synth leads aren't as forward as they should be. The scoop could be partially to blame for that. The lack of clarity seems to get worse as the song progresses, 4:41-4:53 for example. There's an additional drum element here (toms?) combined with everything else just being too much fullness and contributing heavily to muddiness. Performance of the parts sounds good, well timed, but the production and medley-nature of the arrangement are the drawbacks. NO

Sweet, high energy D&B! This is rad. Complete with utter madness in the middle, just how I like it! I have to say, book-ending the wild time changes and drum parts that Madness has with more "regular" dnb in the beginning and end worked very well to create a very interesting contrast. With regards to the Mad Luca section in the middle, I would've liked it better if the individual parts were clearer to the ear. They have a good energy but something about their sound design and mixing choices made them harder to follow the melodic lines here. Not a dealbreaker though. Aside from that the sources are both well represented throughout with clear and distinct sections for both. The production is not bad, the low end rocks and the kick is coming through nicely! Success from chaos! YES

You're right, I did say that I enjoyed your work in progress before, but felt like it needed more. I still feel that even though this one is pretty close right now and feeling borderline. I love the addition of the choir parts and the oboe, they sound beautiful. More adaption and parts added to this that would put this over the bar in terms of arrangement as we've had even more conservative stuff pass before. See: https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR04768 for an example of such. However, in that case there was also genre adaption going on for more personalization. This one feels almost like the same genre even though the instruments are changed. The opening is particularly very close to the original, until 1:07 when the cello enters and is giving some countermelody. The humanization and rigidity is also something needs to be brought up as well. I love Seph's suggestion of adding rubato to bring some more life to the piano part, right now it's very locked into the grid. Also the dynamic range is very small, more contrast and variation would also help the expression really shine through as well. Right now it's more robotic and not as expressive as it could be. Beautiful, but not up to par. NO

This one feels like a throwback to early 2000s OCR trance/dance music such as artists like FFmusic Dj. That's rad. I would have liked this more with the piano line being more humanized with more variation in velocity, but at the same time I recognize that in this genre more rigidity is normal. Surprisingly this isn't as in your face or hard-hitting as I would expect from this genre. As jnWake noted, there is more space to work with to get a bigger sound. That's not at all a knock on this track in particular, just something to consider for the future. No problem with source usage here as there's plenty of being used as well as new sections that are filled with your own interpretation and material. This could have also had a more substantial and definite ending as what is here now does leave you hanging without landing on the 1 or tonic. I don't necessarily feel effuse with praise here, but at the same time you got the job done with solid production and a good arrangement in a throwback-style remix. YES

I want to start out by saying there's some good personalization here and embellishment on the source material that is uniquely you. Good work there. The arrangement is ok, but definitely would not hurt from being expanded upon further more. Use of articulation was also executed well, aside from a couple of the trills. Specifically the trill at 1:01 and 1:07 both sound like they have notes in them that don't fit in with the other parts. 0:47 I'm not sure if it's the trumpet, trumpet + flute, or one of the string parts going a chromatic glissando here, but it's not sounding very idiomatic or good. For being a "treble" chamber piece, the trumpet is overpowering the other parts for most of the piece. It really makes this feel more like a solo trumpet piece rather than a chamber ensemble. Right now it feels like foreground and background parts only. Bringing that trumpet back into the ensemble so it sits amongst the other parts and is a group would be a benefit. A suggestion I would make is to consider swapping a part to a lower instrument like a cello to round out the low end some. That's not a requirement, but a nice to have. I don't have as much of an issue with the samples used as prophetik did, but having them be up front and exposed as they are now does not help them feel more realistic. With a track this short, everything would need to be firing perfectly on all cylinders to pass. Expand this out more, add more variation or another contrasting section, and work on the blend of the parts so they are working together as a group. The personalization is a good start here, but it needs more work on production and arrangement to get it over. NO

One could get nitpicky on this, but things here are totally fine and it's absolutely good enough for the front page. Even if it's an older track. The personalization is there throughout the track, it's just subtle. People will enjoy this for being simple and it still feeling a lot like the source tune. The drum mix is a personal taste, and I think it's fine; even with a big snare. More variation on the drum pattern itself would have been welcomed, but it didn't feel strictly repetitive here. It's a fun little track and should be on the front page. YES

Good follow up to your previous work. Fits right in as a continuation of the story you're telling. The arrangement and orchestration choices are very well done. The dynamics are mostly handled well, and the tempo rubato in the beginning was a nice touch for some extra humanization. 4:17-6:02 was a particularly sparse section and before the timpani joins at 5:20 there could have been some light background textures added to help this space not drag so much. The long slow burn crescendo that follows after was good, and included some spicy harmonic choices that I liked. 7:04 is where things fall short for me, it's the climax and delivery of the theme as we've expected it finally. The upper strings' attack doesn't feel fitting to the drama of this moment, too legato and not enough bite. 7:22 there's a sforzando or fortepiano that didn't seem to work right. The cut to piano there is very abrupt and you don't really have the reverb tail to follow it so it sounds very unnatural. The other thing that felt unnatural was the harp coming through very clearly in the crescendo build to 7:01 and after. In reality the harp would not cut through a full double forte orchestra. While I do have some criticisms I don't feel they were deal breakers and the strength of arrangement and orchestration choices outweighed a few minor issues. YES

Don't need to get too deep on details because this is really solid! Secret Uematsu source I have never heard before, and it feels both like and not-like him as well. Beautifully executed arrangement, the source is fully dominant and it's full of the perfect piano embellishments I would expect to hear. Not everything needs to be super complex or virtuosic to be good and beautiful. YES

Mr. Norvak is back once again with more dark and heavy EDM. After getting through a complete listen through, the number one thing I'm happy to see is that this doesn't suffer from lack of repetition like some of the other submissions of yours I've heard in the past. Good job changing up the sections and adding contrast where it's needed. The master hits pretty hard, but I'm not hearing any over compression or artifacts. The bottom is nice and thick but not too overpowering. The biggest complaint I could make here is the relative lack of dynamics, even in the sparser sections it's still pretty loud and powerful. More dynamic changes within a section could do wonders to help evolve the soundscape. However with the overall lack of dynamic changes the contrast in sparser sections was good enough for me not to feel the piece is too static. The sound design is good with clean production, and there is lots of personalization here. YES

Expecting greatness, and i'm not disappointed...it's jnWake! Some proggy goodness with a very silly and wacky source tune this time. Something about this mixdown isn't as clean as your usual work for some reason, but it's still very well produced without any specific production issues catching my ear. The 4:10 transition was abrupt but not so shocking after everything proceding. I liked the use of the static as a transition as a direct carry over from the "Your Best Nightmare" source. I would not have considered doing that and it's a nice tie in even thought it's subtle and a good way to suddenly transition. Speaking of source usage, it's well represented; absolutely love the chopped usage of the sources and appreciated the breakdown. Great work from both of you! YES

I was the lone yes on the first submission and this version is better still. There were two issues I called out on the first one, being the loud and forward guitar and the kick not coming through very well. To me the guitar was addressed and improved, but the kick still could come out in the mix more. The kick does feel better than the first version, but there is still some more space for it. The arrangement is still great and fun filled with the same BBQ beach vibes. Still a YES

I'm going to keep this short to keep this moving. The whole arrangement is good, and the performances are solid. I'd like to hear more singing from you actually, you have a great tone. EK sounds great as always. With that said, I would be able to enjoy this and loop it ad infinitum if the mixing flaws were corrected. Once the full sound comes in the vocals and drums sound over-compressed, it's like either the threshold is set for it to be triggering too much or the ratio is too high. It's strange because when there's less going on the parts sound just fine to me, such as the nice break section with just EK (3:11-3:35). The top presence range around 4kHz for the vocals feels boosted heavily. Combined with the cymbals ringing out; that top frequency range is giving a lot of top end brightness that gets fatiguing after long sections of the track where the drums are going constantly. Two pops managed to sneak their way in at 6:19 and 6:20. I really love to hear this repaired because the arrangement is great and the performances are good, but the mixing and/or mastering needs another go for clean-up. NO (resubmit)

So a long while back I was talking with TSori, and we ruminated on wither or not we had heard any solo trumpet in a synthwave styled track as a lead. We could not think of any examples and so I said I would write one and have him play on it. Fast forward to sometime in the future when I had been playing ImpactGameworks' beta for Flowstone Saga and I was being immersed in the art and music. I recall a scene early in the game where a solo piano version of the main character's theme plays with gorgeous visuals. I wanted to just sit there and be immersed for as long as I could. I knew that I wanted to arrange that source from then. I had an initial attempt at arranging this that didn't work out and so I put it aside for a while. I picked it back up and started with the bass this time, everything clicked and fell into place very quickly after that. I got the trumpet part to TSori and he crushed it as always. I spent a lot of time working on mixing and lots more attention to the mastering this time around, I feel like that was reflected in this compared to much of my previous work. And I have to give thanks to Chimpazilla for some crucial critical feedback at the end. Enjoy! Games and Sources: Flowstone Saga: "The Climb" (Mirai's Theme)

Love the piano/violin duo to open the track. The violin is fantastic sounding. Really sets the mood nicely as we get going into the main style at 1:03 with cyberpunk-esque synthwave in full swing. The break at 1:41 felt to come early, but a change in texture is always a good one. 2:07 gives us the actual delivery of full sound now and it goes hard. The side-chaining is on point and big tom fills fit in perfectly with the style. Drum pattern change at 3:23 was excellent, and came at the perfect time as I was starting to feel tired of the previous pattern. A very slick blink and you'll miss it guitar cameo from Pixelseph right at the very end of the track. Could have been next level if that came in sooner and continued the track with some guitars playing leads afterwards. Audible clipping at 0:44 that seems to likely be the piano. I would have preferred the melodic elements to be mixed more forward and louder as it should be the main focus. The fade out ending came so quickly after we reached the peak of energy building with the newly introduced guitar that it does feel like a bit of a let down. The track evolves nicely with an awesome vibe, and plenty of changes in the writing to keep the interest going even though there isn't much in terms of synth variation. YES

I can understand the argument regarding the source usage, but I'm glad Darkesword put that to rest. This is the cleanest pieces I've heard by Emunator. Going light with bass being portrayed by cello was an excellent call, until later in the track. It really let the track evolve and grow throughout. All of the performances are super clean, and were mixed in very well. If I had to nitpick, the drums and bass could have come up in volume. Tough balancing act because too much would waylay the light airy feeling the track has. Maclaine sounds stellar and stylistically fits this perfectly. This is all absolutely gorgeous. YES

This is pretty slick. You 100% nailed what you were going for in trying to get a FF7Remake/Rebirth boss battle vibe going. The different themes were woven together nicely, feels like one new piece of music to me. The guitar tone is really good, no problem with the leads at all. The rhythm guitars were lost some, and it might be due to what jnWake suggested. Losing some power due to not being double tracked out. I really liked the staccato choir chants as an accent to pickup the energy before getting into "Enclosure" from Metal Gear Solid. Super high energy for 3:26 and I'm surprisingly not exhausted from a lack of change of pace. Switching off to other sources did well to prevent that. YES

This opening sounds lovely and really got my expectations up to get things started. We then get to 0:32 and the sampled flute is introduced. The tone on flute is great and I like that, but there's other issues about it that cause problems. First off, it's placement in the mix is very forward and loud. I'd recommend to shoot for pushing it back in the mix so that it feels at a similar placement as the solo vocalist in the intro. You should be able to achieve that with careful application of the wet/dry levels on the reverb as well as some reduction of volume. Next with the flute, we come to articulation. And well, there is no legato, it's all detached. Whenever a more agile line is played (such as any of the chromatic passing tones like 0:38; I'll come back to this later) you can hear the separation between all of the attacks as well as times where the attack is too slow to keep up and the note barely sounds before being cut off by the next one. If you're able to, I'd recommend to try to record yourself playing the line. The arrangement itself is pretty conservative with a few small places were things were added, the intro is great, and the middle bridge 1:34-1:46 was nice. The melodic embellishment with chromatic passing tones in the melody are a form of personalization. I didn't necessarily agree with the chromatic notes because they do sound awkward in context, but they are making it your own thing and that is a step in the right direction. The texture is mostly homophonic throughout with a few other part having movement is the pizzicato, harp, and horns in different spots. Some of those were buried in the mix and not easily noticeable. Now that's not necessary to get a pass, but could help when thinking about future arrangements to keep the listener's interest going. The number one issue here is the balance between parts. As others have already said before me, the brass gets very big at times, and as I pointed out already the flute is very forward to cut through everything. In reality for a solo flute to cut through in an orchestral setting the backing parts would likely need to be playing softer than the flute for it to be able to project and carry out. In a digital context it's easy to just turn the volume up, but when you do that it just sounds unnatural. With all that said, it's going to sound like I hate this. That's not the case, I feel like there is space for this, but in it's current form it's not ready yet. NO

Vibe is great, this feels very similar to your previous Octopath Traveler 2 submission. Dark, ominous, 80s-feeling synths and toms fit in perfectly. I love the tone chosen for the guitar and the bass. As everyone before me has pointed out this isn't perfect. I find myself agreeing with some criticisms and others I feel that can be overlooked. The mixing of the drums isn't ideal, but it's good enough to get by. The kick has more beater than bass making it lose some beef and body. Not ideal but I can get over this, and it's certainly not brittle sounding either. Transitions were another weak part of this track, often between the sections there isn't much of one to be found. That leaves the time signature changes feeling unprepared, and a little awkward. I can't make perfect be the enemy of good enough on this one, as I feel what's here is over the bar and my criticisms are nitpicks rather than bombs. YES (borderline)

On casual listen this will feel melodically conservative. The devil's in the subtle details though. There's a lot of structural changes in this and some fun playing with time signatures. 2:06-2:44 brought the melodic interpretation, and it's a fun change-up. As far as sound quality, yeah this does kinda feel like an upgrade to Alpha 2. However, I don't know if I would have got that had I not read it from your description. That's fine, it doesn't need to be exactly sounding like a CPS2, it's your own thing. I do wish there was more dynamic changes throughout the piece as it's relatively flat dynamically. With all that said, what's here is clever and interesting as I keep catching new and different things on each listen. From time signature changes, to extending out phrase/section lengths, and playing with the overall structure the highlight is the arrangement here. Fun concept, very cool arrangement. YES