The Orichalcon

I've gone through the list and made some changes. I'll post them up tomorrow after I get a chance to chat with Doulifee.

Good percussion set up. Waiting for it to build into something. So far most of this has been just percussion and drums with some creepy ambience in the background. Theme builds in from 1:45 with some cool and creepy strings. The atmosphere behind this is very well produced, allows you to turn it up and get the full atmosphere. Not sure I'm totally feeling those ahh samples used around 3:00. The samples used in the melody tend to sound kind of basic for the soundscape you've set up. The strings in particular sound piercing and out of place, very MIDI. I'm liking the atmosphere you've set up, but the sample choices are really killing this piece for me. With some darker and thicker samples this probably could've been a lot cooler. Even the drums are sounded too basic and light for the sound of the mix. The arrangement is very good and thoroughly enjoyable. I'm getting an impending destruction of the world feel from this mix. Take this one back to the board and try to get some more realistic samples to match the realistic percussion and atmosphere you have in the background. This piece could be epic if it had that little extra attention to detail. Compared to this source, this piece is a lot more aggressive and energetic, but it needs more attention to detail in order to pull it off properly. Also, nice job on making a 7:35 mix sound refreshingly unique and unrepetative for the majority of the mix. I'm going to have to NO this one, just because of the samples. Please find the time to try to address those issues, because this song shows a lot of promise.

This started off sounding like it was going to be a nightmare, but this is actually pretty cool. You've set up some binster-style beats to start with. The way you introduce the mix catches one off-guard for the soundscape you set up around 30 seconds into it. It's a very catchy use of the synthetic sounds. I'm not feeling the break halfway through, it felt out of place for me, and the way the mix builds back up from there isn't really pushing the right buttons either. It's sounding more like you ran out of decent ideas around that point. The arrangement ideas are evident. I can hear both themes instantly. Have you done enough to actually remix the two similar themes? I'll say you have, since you've done some funky stuff with the leads and arpeggio synths in the background which show unique creativity. I'm torn with this one. On one hand you have some really awesome arrangement ideas, and creative work with the way you've utilised to the samples you've chosen. But on the other, you have a very out of place segway in the middle of the piece, and a very abrupt ending. It's a question of whether the good sections make up for the issues in the piece. I'm willing to go with this one. I think it's enjoyable as it is, it could be better, and I could see reason for rejecting it and asking for a resubmission. But as I'm most certainly repeating, I like it the way it is and think it passes our bar. YES I should also note that I'm struggling to believe that this is the same Theoconfidor who participated in the recent PRC71 where he placed at a modest fifth. This piece is several clicks above the production of the mix in that competition that I'm only assuming he put it there to completely blow me away when I finally heard this mix on the panel.

Those starting synths are very dry. I like the arrangement ideas you've used, but you need to try to back them up with some real strings or something, to give them a thicker, less basic feel. The beats are all right, but dampen the reverb on the kick and snare. Your lead is off-tune mate, you've missed the arrangement on that one. If that was intentional, that's even worse. You really need to thicken up the atmosphere in this. Give it some better bass. Try building up the beats at some point, they stay the same right throughout, makes them noticeably repetative after a while, especially when they drop out and come back in sounding exactly the same. You have some interesting ideas, but for a day's arrangement, there's a lot of room for more work. Expand on the ideas here, work on thickening up some of the sounds and improving upon the layers you've already programmed. Definitely fix that lead woodwind so it hits the right notes. I can hear the FF7 reference in that, but it just doesn't work the way you've arranged the melodies to flow into each other. NO

God damn, this is template techno if I ever heard it. That just summarises the way I feel about this mix in general. It takes absolutely nothing to find a template of a techno song that happens to be in the same key as the source, and pasting the melody over the top, tweaking a few little things and calling it a remix. loopy techno beats, and a relatively clear and clean soundscape doesn't make this a valid remix. This is clearly lowering the bar and allowing groove-bias to overcome better judgement. If this passes, this will be one of the worst decisions in the history of the site. There have been hundreds of songs that have shown better arrangement ideas than this that have been rejected. Am I supposed to believe that having "t3h ph4t b34tz" is supposed to save a piece? The majority of this mix has nothing to do with the source. This is pretty much a standard job of welding two completely different tracks together and hoping they stick. If you wanted to attempt to incorporate the source in more than 20% of the song, feel free to resubmit, but until then this is a NO.

Some serious volume issues here. The drums, funky pads and background EP are all at such contrasting levels that the pads are too loud, the EP is too soft, you need to balance them out. second issue is repetativeness. Over one minute into the mix and nothing is happening yet. 1:15 and that whatever-it-is is way too freaking loud, I'm talking distortion and ear-splitting loud. I'm not listening to this anymore, this has buckleys chance of passing, fix up the awful production issues before you do anything else. NO

Ok, production is already arse. The bass sounds rather strong in the mids (assuming that's a bass) you need to punch it up a little but further down so it's not so piercing. Give the percussion a little more beef, it sounds like it has an AM-radio EQ right now. Your sax playing isn't as impressive as it was in that Jurassic park remix. It's still good, but it's not too well timed in parts. You're still very good with that, I just think you need to maybe try making a few mixes without any saxophone so you can work on mastering arrangement and production without relying on one instrument. So, sax is good, but the rest of the mix is blindingly dull and bad. The stuff in the background needs just as much attention as the sax, otherwise it just sounds bad and dull. NO Edit: Subsequent listens have given me the opinion that this would make for excellent porno music.

Do you people even listen to other remixes before making these comments. "there are certain "forumlas" on this site that will always get an approval from DJJudges" Like you'd even know, all you hear is what gets passed. We get more than enough crappy guitar mixes that are rejected. We get the same amount of ignorance from both sides. People who say judges only accept techno, people who say judges only accept guitar mixes. How about you listen to every mix on the front page, then point out how they're all "formulaic"? Until then, you'll remain an ignorant prick. As for this mix, I love it. It's less grungey than I personally would've liked, and the violin did nothing for me. But otherwise it's a decent arrangement of the Judgement Day music.

Thankyou, that was very insightful.

I've decided to do a list cull to get rid of the deadweight on the project. I want everyone to take a step back and make an honest assessment as to whether you think you can complete your track for the project in a reasonable amount of time. If not, then please step down. Anyone who doesn't reply within a week from today will be removed from the project. I'll also be requesting that the project be moved back to the Requests forum to appeal for more active members after then. So to repeat. Even if you've spoken to me recently about your track prior to this announcement, send me a PM to let me know where you honestly think you stand. After a week, anyone who doesn't reply will be removed from their track. I'll also cull the people from the project who I think are fence-sitters.

I love this piece. Mazedude has this way with music that just flows into enjoyment. It's rare that he makes something that I don't find enjoyable. Anyway, this one is great, the main melody playing through the majority of the mix reminds me a lot of Descent's music, which used that off-tune chord style that MD shows here. Beats are cool, the wacky time signature makes it even cooler. Reminiscent of Tool's stuff in that you can't groove to it, but it has its own pace that is still enjoyable.

B-B-B-Boobass. FL Slayer sounding crap as always, but rather well used for a change too. I always feel that using FL Slayer well is like caking the elephant man in make-up and saying he's ready for the senior ball. It's still ugly underneath no matter what you do. Despite the absolutely horrendous basic samples, they're utilised probably as well as they could be. But it still has buckley's chance of being posted onto the site. Here's my suggestion. Get some better samples, don't use the FL Defaults. Sometimes they can be used in junction (haha, get it? From Final Fan... nevermind) with other instruments to sound good. Boobass and FL Keys can show promise, but the rest of the default FL stuff is just arse unless you're an absolute God like Prophecy, who is capable of making a recording of someone ripping into a microphone into aural gold. You could probably work on the arrangement a bit more too. I got the fast-paced sound of the mix, but it stopped short of 3 minutes without really going anywhere. NO

Given that my DAP isn't working, this mix would want to be good for the 2 hours it took to download from the FTP. (I have no freaking idea why that hyperlinked.) I was actually watching the "remaining time to download" number go up for an antagonisingly long moment. Call me hasty, but the first 10 seconds of the mix make me want to auto-NO. I can already hear how flooded the mix is in reverb. The drums pounded my poor unexpecting ear drums from the get go. Just so you know, Sil already did an orchestral remix of this song, so you could've saved yourself some time and just listened to that. What I can hear so far seems to be the source, minus most of the cool parts. The parts that are covered almost directly sound pretty cool and powerful in an orchestral setting (as demonstrated by Sil already as well.) But the rest is all this original tripe that just sounds awkward given the poor production. I can appreciate the remixer not just ripping the original, but I dunno if this was the best piece to try to experiment around with, since it's already a completely awesome tune the way it is, anything else just sounds like turd in comparison, especially stuffed right through the middle of the coolest parts of the source. It's about 100 times better than what I could do with turning a piece this complex into an orchestral mix. But it's about 100 times less than what is needed to make it onto the site. (That's my kind way of saying NO.)

Source: It's the tomb raider theme, if you haven't heard it, travel back in time and slap yourself around for not being cool. For some reason, my download accelerator is refusing to work anymore. So I have to go through and download all these mixes manually, this'll be fun. So, Tomb Raider remix. I can only really remember the one theme, though I have another file from the game on my PC called "Running" which is pretty cool. Ok, the mix is finally downloaded. Cool backwards effects on whatever-it-is that's meant to be. Same Harpline comes in, followed by the off-tune oboe-thing playing the melody. That thing is a few cents short of a dollar, if you catch my drift. I will thank you from the bottom of my heart for not flooding the piece in reverb to compensate for the lack of solid arrangement, but unfortunately that's pretty much what the main problem with this remix is, lack of a complex arrangement. I can hear the creativity in what you've done with the theme, but it just sounds like you've wanked the theme around to different keys and used different instruments. The piece is random as hell and not particularly interesting. Maybe if you worked on making the wacky arrangement sound fuller, and the instruments less fake and wanky, then maybe it'd work, but I wouldn't count on it. Big original section in the middle. It sounds like you've done what I sometimes do and forgotten what you were remixing halfway through making the mix. Back to the harp at 3:40-ish. Sounding a little like Tomb Raider 2's rather off-tune version of the Tomb Raider them here. Still lacking change for a dollar with the woodwind I see. Builds up into a thicker string soundset nearing 5 minutes in, but it's far too late and nowhere near as good as it should've been. On an extra note, adding little stuttery notes to the harpline doesn't count as "livening it up", it's still identical to the original notation. NO

Phil is happy with the ending as it is. He's on holiday for the next few months, so he'd be unable to fashion a new ending if he wanted to until he got back anyway.

I know that instrument in the intro. Juno Reactor used it in "Jardin De Cecile" Righto, the mix is generic simply put. The beats are repetative, there aren't a lot of switch-ups in the beats, nothing to make them stand out. The bass is EQ'ed well, but tends to drown out the melody. Larry was on the ball when he said that some of the sounds are used in a beginnerish way. Throw some effects in there to vary them so they're less MIDI-sounding. Work on making the arrangement less repetative too. For being 5:35, you're reusing the same ideas over and over with little to no variation in the loops. NO

The beats work as an intro, but you need to build them beyond the same loops you're using to start with, they get old fast. The song goes from sounding promising to just sounding repetative and incomplete. The switchup in the drums comes 1:30 through the piece, you need to bring that in sooner, and then beef up the drums for a second section. I do like the way you've set up the mix, if it is done the way Gray pointed out with an arpeggiator, it works well. But it needs to be executed better. Work on varying those beats some more, beefing them up in the second section, and the other stuff that the other judges have mentioned and this could turn out quite well. NO

Sounds a lot nicer than the last one. Everything is balanced a lot better. The harpsichord + flute mix still doesn't work for me. It sounds like a MIDI leading into a proper piece, just doesn't click together for me. Otherwise the rest of the mix is beautiful. Not so empty in the heavier section now. Nice work. YES

LT Edit: Listening to the "new" link and the old, I think the old version may accidentally be the one linked to here. I'm trying to figure out through Kyle if his link accidentally points to the wrong one. Hold off on it please. TO Edit: Hemo just sent me a message, Kyle accidently uploaded the old one. It's fine now.

No, the tracks will be available once the project is completed, and only then.

Works for me, some of those brass samples are a bit abbrasive. There's a lot of reverb on the stuff that's going on in the background (ie: that swamped sound.) The drumwork is awfully uninspired. It's just there to keep a beat basically. Loved the switch in the beat around 2:30. Works for me. Could probably be more going on down there, but the rest of the mix distracts away from that. Not a lot more to say. Good rearrangement. Enjoyable remix. YES

This mix feels awfully cluttered. There are some good ideas, but nothing seems to fit together too well. I'm with zircon in this one, it just feels messy and unpolished. The drums can keep that tone while still raising the clarity a bit. The guitar is fine. The bass sounds discordant to the rest of the mix. Like it's just plonking away, rather than keeping things in tune. I Dunno, ultimately this just sounds like a mess to me. I can't really see any reason to pass it. The production could be much better. The arrangement could be better (but I won't reject on that basis, since it comes down to opinion.) If you can fix up the production problems and get this to sound less messy, then it'd most likely be an easy yes, but for now I can't see how passing this wouldn't be lowering our standards. NO

Something's sounding a little too crunchy in the background at the beginning of the mix and subsequently through the mix. Could use a little less fuzz on the distortion. I agree with zirc and Larry that you've set up a good basis groove here. It is the same few chords repeated with some variations. I'd say it's almost there for a minimalist creation, but you can build up to a good melody or synth section if you wanted to in the middle of the piece, rather than just having it repeat. Good production apart from that crunch-factor. Resubmit if you can figure out how to fill in the gaps. NO

Swishy-Swashy flanging effect is pretty good to begin with. But needs to build to something solid. The distorted textures remind me of Rimco's Doomed-e1m8 remix. Cool effect, but not utilised too well here. The melody that came in halfway through the second minute was pretty good in the textured environment. Those beats that came in after 2:10 needed to come in much sooner. They're good. Layer them with some non-flanged drums and you have a solid beat for the piece. The texturing is what makes this mix sound cool. It needs more solid arrangement ideas, and maybe needs to be a little longer too. Good work though. NO

How could you say no to that face?