Hemophiliac   Judges ⚖️

I'm surprised this is still on the panel just over two months because hot damn, this is fire. jnWake's signature keyboard synths and pristine mixing highlighted by terrific performances by Jabo and minusworld. This arrangement is fantastic, anchored to the source as a basis for the insane soloing by everyone. You guys are just showing off, sick. Slam dunk YES

I think the one criticism that I can make here is the amount of reverb/stereo delay on the lead is almost too much here. On faster notes it overlaps with the next notes causing a washed out sound on faster passages. Fortunately there are not many of those moments and the melody just hovers over everything. If the stereo delay or reverb was reduced this might be too thin and sparse, so it's filling in the space when the pads aren't taking over the foreground such as 1:06-1:34. Arrangement is terrific as always with MkVaff and delivers his own unique vibe and continues to fit in with his "Sin City" line of tracks he's been producing. Great work as always, chill beats, and awesome vibe. Easy YES

This is really lovely, another great arrangement with tremendous performances from everyone. The restraint that is demonstrated early in the track really allows it to develop and explode into a wonderful full sound late into the track. Slow burn again pays off with cool vibes. My only complaint is the tambourine in the second half being hotter then my personal preference, but that's not a knock at all when that's the only thing I can complain about. Frankly my favorite stuff about this is in the first half of the arrangement when things are exposed and sparse. The piano early on is a great gentle accompaniment. The acoustic is wonderful. The 1:34-2:05 gentle sine synth was such an unexpected but ever so fitting addition that really felt that it belonged within the context of all of the acoustic setting. Very well done! YES

Not the best samples here, but some careful attention has been given to the phrasing and dynamics. The dynamic range in particular is good and it's nice to show a wide range. Some woodwinds felt honky when they were exposed and had less to cover them up. As things progressed and more parts came in they got layered in and it was less of an issue. In a macro-sense the arrangement is conservative, but the personalization has come from the orchestration and the addition of layers upon layers of instruments. Would've been nice to have a new section with some melodic interpretation but not necessary. This one won't be forgotten because it's destined for the front page. YES

Much respect to you. Being able to do something more conservative and simple instead of the usual unique approach you take is great. Especially when this was produced very well. Arrangement is conservative but with plenty of your own personalization. I particularly like your part writing in the bass, those slides are super slick! This goes to show that not everything needs to be off the walls crazy and over-produced. Sometimes simple can be a better approach. Nice work Michael! YES

I want to put this on a chill-out station and loop it for 10 hours. It's perfect for work or just relaxation. Bass has a nice warmth and is supportive but isn't in your face, and doesn't take over the mix. The whole thing is very beautiful and delivers as expected from the both of you. Great work as always. My only criticism was that 4:11 was an unexpected transition, but the outro itself worked. YES

Have to start out by saying the intro is very cool. I love it when something starts out with simple sounds and morphs them into more of the identity of the track. Nice work going from chip to guitar smoothly as that can be difficult to pull off. This one is wild, both in good and bad ways. The wild energy is to your benefit, the panning on the other hand is unusual and very wide at times. The wideness of the panning combined with the dryness of the instruments is creating a lot of empty space and texture. Liontamer identified the same and noted the spots where this was the biggest issue. When everything is playing together, it has a fullness that is alright, but when it's only an element or two together it feels too texturally sparse for me. The source is there on this, but it feels more interpretive then straight up conservative as Chimpazilla was suggesting. More direct reference to the melody would've been nice but not a requirement. I like the performance and interpretation, but the mixing, panning, and sparseness were arsenic and rat poison to me. There's definitely something to this energy though, and I'm bummed that I have to give this a NO

Another high energy, wacky submission from CJ. Fun and short. Almost too repetitive, but I'm picking up on tiny differences between the first A section and the repeat at the end that makes them stand apart from each other. Foley + SFX are good and are fitting. Even though there is a contrasting middle section with less stuff going on, I don't feel like this goes anywhere. That could be a product of the length, and nearly same repeat at the end, but I can't say for sure that's the cause. I'd really like to see more development and progression in a future CJ track because this seems to be a reoccurring problem in your work. Anyways, this is perfectly fine and it should be on the front page...some random person is gonna think, "Ultimate Paintball Challenge, never thought I'd see that on OCR". YES

Excellent arrangement, I was expecting it to be more similar to the guitar performance that it was supposedly based off of. It's not though! Plenty of interpretation and plenty of source represented across the board. The realism of the samples could be better, with precise midi editing outside of musescore (as the artist indicated) and switching of articulation specific patches. What is here though is good enough and has plenty of dynamic range and expression. In a real orchestral context you would not hear the harp so clearly during the forte and tutti portions without amplification. That's a nitpick though. This absolutely has a place on the front page, YES

So, I've been waffling back and forth on this one for a while now. The arrangement (aside from the sudden transition at 1:31) is good. All themes have been incorporated and have added plenty of your own interpretation to them. The macro-structure tells a story and the piece goes places, bravo. Where this needs improvement is the production and sequencing. Most of the time the samples feel like they have been handled ok (but could have been better with more attention to detail and articulation switching) and you get by with what you have. However, the sore spot is the lead cello. A few times it is too forward in the mix when it should be more blended (1:46-2:24, gets better when the male choir enters). 0:46 on the cello has a strange flanged quality to it for a moment. I think the arrangement is strong enough to overlook some of the production/sequencing issues here. YES (borderline)

I'm in agreement with my fellow J's on this one. The arrangement itself on a macro level is good and I enjoy listening to this one. The part that needs improvement is the production and mixdown. From 0:00-1:25 everything works for me, and sounds pretty good. At 1:26 a slightly different bass synth enters and takes up a lot of the space. It's got a bunch of high-end on it that crowds out the other parts from being balanced with it, some top end reduction with EQ could help to tame it. I agree with Emunator about side-chaining as well. It isn't required to have some to clean it up, but it would really help in creating a lot of space and helping to lessen the muddiness. There is some general part imbalance during the upbeat sections where I'm not sure what the focus is supposed to be because of the size of the bass. I like how both sources are incorporated and how the overall flow of the piece works very well. The production is what is holding it back unfortunately. This would be the kind of piece that could benefit from some feedback in the workshop if you need more suggestions on how to clean up the balance between parts or reduce muddiness. NO (resubmit)

Starts off with classic melody with a small unexpected change to the end of the phrase. Quickly the dnb takes over and drives the piece into top gear. Energy is not lost when we get it's first contrasting break. 3:03-3:26 and 4:23-4:46 guitar work was a highlight as the off-beat rhythm and melodic interpretation was a great mix-up to the status-quo. The bass work in the first couple minutes is fantastic too. Great work all around. YES

I love how Xaleph is always willing to xpand and play with time when it's appropriate. The arrangement is good, FF7 is dominant here. The ending call and response between singing and growling is a neat way to wrap everything up. 2:37-3:14 was a particular highlight for me because of how the familiarity of the FF7 source's melody is broken up in creative ways to fit the time. Unexpected and it fit the track very well. Sure this isn't the cleanest mix ever as the other J's have pointed out, but it gets the job done more than adequately. This might not be my particular cup-of-tea, but I can see the good qualities heavily outweigh the negative (basically nitpick stuff with the sibilance of consonants) YES

Like your other Mega Man 3 submission, the synths in this are very basic. Sounds like something you might hear in the early 2000s. There are a few filter sweeps I heard in various places in the track, that's good! Now you just need to use that same idea to automate effects or parameters on the synths to give them life, add sophistication, and expression. I want to hear more expression! There's mixing problems abound with this, the leads are tough to hear at times, but also extremely bright in the high end making them unpleasant to listen to. As XPRTNovice points out the snare is very forward in the mix and cuts through tremendously. It is also very static and does not change very much at all in velocity or pattern. The main organ-like lead is difficult to hear as it's buried behind many other elements of the track. 3:03 is a strange transition. The drop out in this manner can work, but it was just into another loop of much of the same we've heard. 3:03 felt like a good opportunity to change things up and show us more of "Heel Tactics" territory then just another repeat of Top Man with the continuous kick. Arrangement-wise this is fairly conservative once we get past the intro. There is much more that can be done to make it your own other than changing up the instruments and dropping into a 4-on-the-floor beat. If you haven't already, I recommend reaching out on the workshop on the forums or Discord to get more feedback so you can refine what you're working on more. NO

This sounds and feels like a throwback to the early days of OCR. It would not be out of place to have heard this back in the early 2000s. The biggest issues are the blend of parts and the mixdown. The drums are the most present part of the mix and the melodic elements are further back. The bass could be a lot fuller. As both of the previous two votes have noted, this snare is like a laser that cuts through everything. It's the number one thing you hear and not just because of volume, but it seems to be taking up much of the frequency range as well. Structurally it's not terrible, as you do have some contrasts in texture and even have a dropout around 1:42 and 3:00 that helps to break up the repetitiveness of the track, however it quickly gets repetitive again. If you keep following a drop out to just reintroduce the instruments one at a time it will get stale. The synth choices are pretty vanilla and are lacking some sophistication, could use an update to a more modern palette. As well as taming of some of their harsher upper frequencies, such as the lead that enters at 2:08. If you do consider revising this, take another look at the sound design, try to get the parts to blend together better rather than them being so separate in the mix, and see about reducing the overall repetitiveness within each section. NO

Had to really go through the rabbit hole of decision making on this for myself. At first I was down on the idea of using GM samples, but I came to realize that you have sophisticated them in a very unique way. Playing with their note-offs and releases has created a very tight sound that created a lot of space. If I was to really ding you on anything it's that the unintended result of cutting the notes so short has created empty space at times. The arrangement is excellent and there is so much good work on swinging the rhythm and making that classic bassline funky. 1:55-2:06 is a particular highlight for me in how you lead into the wacky Witches' hut source. This is crazy and wacky piece, but with excellence of execution in the personalization of the source and sequencing of the parts. Great work! YES

Wow, this was a tough one. I don't understand the need for many of the sections to get a second or sometimes 4x repeat before it moves to another phrase. While this is a compositional/arrangement technique, the application here ends up feeling more drawn out. The original source had many of these melodies play a second time, but with definite differences to the first time they were introduced (for example: change of dynamics or instrumentation). When things get played a second time without changing anything to them, it just feels like adding length without saying anything significant. In terms of the macro-structure and how the whole piece is laid out it works, it's just the repeats within each section getting so dull. 1:25-2:11 we get the first presentation of the "chorus" as you called it from Invincible. Except you've changed it so that the first half of it (1:07-1:13 from Invincible on the YouTube video source) is the only part that we get and loop that. We recognize that as being from Invincible even though it's modified somewhat, and the amount of repetition also ingrains us into knowing it's your chorus. 2:36-3:00, 3:01-3:24 The "chorus" returns and plays 4x twice! And these 4x are identical except for an upper guitar added on the second time, but it's so buried it might as well not be there. The final time this repeats 6:25-7:00 it doesn't seem like anything is different and is copied over once again. In between the "chorus" sections and the intro I really like how you use the other parts of the source to act as bridges and create a softer contrasting texture. The production is mostly good, and you certainly know your genre very well. My only production gripes are few things being buried or taking up too much space. Such as the higher guitar during the second half of 3:01-3:24, and the sonar-like synth taking up a lot of space in the mix. I also didn't care for many of the synth choices, but that didn't factor into my decision. The downfall of this, for me; is ultimately going to be in the repetition without variation or changes. NO

So this is going to make it sound like I hate trance and don't like this piece. While the piece is very well produced, there is way too much repetition going on here. Multiple sections repeat completely, and the same identical main drum fill gets used over and over (0:29, 1:57, 2:12, 2:27, 3:26, 4:10). The backing synth bass/arp is a staple of trance and that going constantly is fine with me, but what's above it has gotta change up some. It could be melodic changes, instrument changes, different effects placement, etc. Anything that would distinguish it from it's first time playing. Similar to when you're having a conversation and speaking with someone and they ask you to repeat yourself, most people will change how they said it: increased volume, slow down their enunciation...you get the idea. If you're gonna say something more then once, make it unique after the first time. If there are tiny changes in these later sections, I'm not identifying them. I also agree with Chimpazilla about the bell lead at 1:14, it is very bright and could use a little rounding off on the top with EQ so it's not as harsh. I don't totally hate the sound itself, just needs some rounding of the edges. As is this track is very close and the interpretation of the source into trance was done well, I like the structure of the whole piece, and the production is clean. I just want to see more variation/changes on the repeated sections to help the track progress forward. SUPER borderline NO (resubmit)

This is going to be very well liked by many people. Combining two mega-iconic themes worked so well, so seamlessly. Using the panning throughout to keep space for the themes to work together but separately at the same time was a good idea. If the melodies were closer to center, it might have been harder to parse them as a listener. I really liked the change at 3:30 was handled very nicely, and helped inject extra energy in this final repeat. 3:01's changes here were a particularly awesome highlight for me, as this progression was an great choice to bring it home. Not a huge fan of the constant stereo ping-pong on one of the lead synths as I personally find them disorienting, but it's not making me vomit so that's it's ok What can I say, the arrangement, production, and nostalgia is off the charts and will definitely have many people swimming in the atmosphere of the woods. Excellent work. YES

This is a sweet source, I've not heard it before. Adding drums to the final section was a cool idea, and maybe consider bringing in a light drum pattern early to help increase the energy level in a different way other then dynamics or doubling parts. Your master limiter is putting in work here, and it's not doing it in your favor. I can hear many places throughout where there is audible clipping/distortion of those peaks. This must be addressed if you plan to resubmit. 0:59 the synth vocalist comes in and is slightly behind the beat with each note. Once the sub kicks into full gear around 0:48 things start to get really full and lush, but you lose a lot of clarity because of heavy overlapping of notes or just too much reverb. From 2:58 to the end it's basically a total wash of reverb and overpacked parts. Either you need to go back and work on gain-staging out the piece with a new mixdown where the different parts aren't so loud and stepping on each others toes or start taking out parts that don't add something unique (needless doubling). Prophetik hit the nail on the head in saying that this is conservative, but not without some personalization. Plenty of orchestration choices that were not in the original as well as addition and subtraction from the arrangement as it goes. So I feel like a slow burn like this can work as an overall structure and you added your own flavors to it, kudos there. However, the production on this needs to be addressed and improved upon. NO

The tempo-sync'd effect at the beginning of the track is a nice touch, it helps give a rhythmic element while the drums are playing sparsely. The adaption of the genre to a dark, brooding, and heavy metal-adjacent piece works very well for the source, and is the strongest element of this track. I would've liked to have seen more interpretation of the melodic, harmonic, or rhythm of the source in the second half. Along with less repetition in the part-writing. That said, there are some very small things that you did do to help distinguish from 1st half to 2nd half: there's slightly more drum work going on, the timbral change by going up with the guitar, and additional usage of tremolo on the guitar. Not adding something more substantial to differentiate the second half makes the piece drag. You lose energy and it feels like build-up without a pay-off. The production is good enough, even with the bass not giving the fullest punch it could have. YES (borderline)

One could equate the time changes in this to the unpredictability of lightning strikes. I think they fit really well despite catching me flat-footed every time they come about. That's the real strength of this arrangement, the masterful handling of time in a proggy manner. Good job of letting the piano cut through despite it being a rather full mix. That could easily get buried and overpowered. Melody gets attenuated at 2:20 behind other elements and the backing elements feel much louder here. Losing some of the melodic focus until 2:53. I can live with the unclarity for a short while as it is over quickly. That's my only gripe. The excellence here is the arrangement, the less than perfect production can be overlooked. Nice work! YES

Tremendouz is amongst the best at sequencing virtual instruments for realism. I'm always amazed every time I hear his work how convincingly real it is. I think most people would not know these are not live performances. Warm and luscious opening leads to a more traditional approach. I can understand Proph's comment about mud in the opening, we have the absolute bottom end of the guitar in a similar range to the bass, and they step on each other's toes a little bit. This didn't bother me because it added warmth for a short while and moved away from this into a more open voicing of parts. Production is good, with such a small ensemble of instruments, it's nice to have everything feel together in the same room. I am surprised this didn't go full bore orchestral later on in the track to really amp up the energy. The choice to keep it small and intimate was a good one, because it allows the subtle emotions to come through more. I know there's a lot of FFXIV out there and I think they'll really like this one. YES

Thank you for including the breakdown for a long track such as this. Nice to also stay close to the source with some of your own genre adaption to start, and then slowly start bringing in more departures and unhinged madness. Even when you do start to depart during 1:52-2:20 it still feels anchored to the original because of the similar figure being played. 3:14 was a sudden transition to a new section that has a completely different, whimsical feeling. 3/4s of the way through the song we get a few background vocal elements, not sure if they were supposed to be understandable because they are buried. If I had to guess, they are probably supposed to be background "ominous" textures rather than understandable. Mix is pretty good, with many elements working very well together and not overpowering each other. Bass and kick lock in pretty well at times and even though they are unison (sometimes) I can still hear the high beater sound on the kick. Good job adapting the original source and keeping it crazy but still grounded at the end of the day. YES

Rubber-stamping with Prophetik and Chimpazilla here. They've already covered the key issues (disjointed and sudden transitions, low end muddiness, and other general production for a cleaner sound). There are absolutely some positives here and those should be applauded. The soloing (aside from a couple questionable notes) and interpretation of the melody was good, and that's the thing that really makes it your own. The timing of the guitars felt solid and wasn't hearing anything out of time. I'm not a fan of the fade out ending, especially with the melody playing over it. I'd recommend to either continue on the synth arp and textures without the melody to fade out, or come up with a more definitive and solid ending. I'd also like to suggest to include the some of the synth work in the middle of the track as well, it's a little strange to book-end a track with elements that don't show up at other points in the track. This is a solid start and something that has potential to be built around, but this is not ready and needs more work. NO (resubmit)