Digital Coma

I agree, that lead synth is very overused and becomes tiring, which is a problem because the listener is supposed to focus on it playing melody. The singing is okay, but could have been clearer and more enunciated. I like the bell/vibe rhythm, nice and chill. When the synth comes in for the first time while the rhythm starts the song off, the juxtaposition creates a nice texture, but the effect wears off soon as the synth goes on and on with zero alteration, and the rhythm itself cheapens. It really does ruin a lot of the song, for instance: the neat break at 3:08. Something fresh, but there's that synth again to deaden it. And why do the vocals fade out at 3:46 before the music does? They cut back in while they've already begun to fade-out; sounds terrible. NO

The female vocals are nice, though mixed low. My problem with this mix is mainly the emptiness - you're going for this Hanz Zimmer sound emulating the large, epic Harry-Gregson Williams original, yet your instrumentation is paltry and the execution is quiet. It's a very barebones song, without much accompaniment or harmony or texture. All you have is some elements of basic orchestration, a lead flute, and hand percussion that doesn't juxtapose. It's very dry and small. NO

Simplistic, generic, undeveloped. NO

The guitars are very dry and bare, without any intonation. Worse, their rhythms are completely off and they clash with the key established further into the mix as they constantly repeat. Nice try on rhythmic changes, but they only worsened the song. 'Discord' is right. NO

Samples and sound quality are much better than in the first version, but we have new problems this time around. Tonal and key issues abound with the mish-mash of orchestral and acoustic sequencing. I don't care about the melody being obscured, as this results in nice chillax, but the strings, timpani, and bells create a mess. I do like the bass, but the low frequencies are messy as well, creating the fuzz Gray refers to. As I suspected, the original is much cleaner, more melodic, and complex. Perhaps you should practice with simpler source material before trying on big game. NO

I think making a chillout mix takes more than decreasing the tempo and changing some samples. NO

This is a little better than that Bubble Bandle crap from long ago. Any particular reason why a random recording begins the mix? To set a "mood"? The recording itself is tinny, but anyway, the performance is mediocre, high school or not. Israfel is right to say this was probably under-rehearsed. "Hey coach, can we play a videogame song after the game when everyone's left so no one can complain?" "k" Besides the performance, the arrangement is weak and under-developed. And who knows what's with the pitch up and pitch/slowdown that begins and ends this. NO

Instrumentation and mixing are decent when they are synths. The acoustic falls apart with the trumpet, strings, and ...sleighbell. Tempo changes are awkward. Patterned repeating arrangement. Needs more than that. NO

Organ in original constantly repeats, thus Darangen had the acoustic rhythm repeat throughout the intro. Makes some sense given that there's not much to the spc. Chorals are similar to the wind sfx. There may not be much to the original, but what little is there hasn't been changed much here. I agree that the transition to the electric guitars is very weak, given the crappy snare. An electric replaces the acoustic rhythm, yet it still just plays on the original organ. Weak resolution. NO

That pulsating synth in the intro does get annoying, and close to distortion too. Four minutes through, I was still impressed by the arrangement. The repetition until that point was negligible, and everything was a go. Past that, the gated synth and recycled beat manage to keep the mix on life support for two MORE minutes. That was unnecessary and detracted from the experience; this really should have ended at the four minute mark. Aside from that, this manages to be an enjoyable groove-based arrangement of repetitious source material, which MarcStar has proven able to achieve. YES

Let's get dangerous. The source material for this mix, Quackerjack's stage, is one of the best from the game. Melody with a punch, swing with pizzaz. Of course, Bushroot's stage is the best, but we all know about that. This mix is full of ideas; clearly Jean de Marc was having fun brainstorming how to develop this piece. As a draft or storyboard for a song, it works nicely. Unfortunately, it lacks greatly in believability of sequencing and quality of mixing, which detract from the potential blast and instead consistently push this sound that's no better than GMIDI. Forget gigasamples; free soundfonts can easily trump this up. Hell, even the samples used here could have been much more believable had any iota of processing and humanizing been involved. This very mechanical sound and sequencing meshes badly with the arranged instruments such as the bare drumlines, starched sax, dry bells, etc. Definitely a good start, but if you want to get dangerous, this needs to be much more believeable. NO And yeah, this is over 6mb. This had no benefit from being encoded at 192kbit.

Most decent suggestion. Accurate analogy and symbolism, unassuming, catchy.

I just checked Rare's site, found a link leading to a feature titled Music Team In The Tepid Seat, and lo: Rare composers answering questions from fans, plus a picture of the whole group that Karmus will jack off to. Some interesting quotes from the crew, including: Dave Wise: "Sometimes, making something sound easy and obvious has been the hardest part of the process. I had no idea what the underwater level should sound like. How do you write something that sounds as though you're struggling to stay afloat? Or a beehive dripping in honey? The experimentation is all part of the fun of writing music." Q: Who sorts out the musical pieces? Is it one guy, or a collective of people (like yourselves)? Robin Beanland: It depends which team you work on and which game designer you work with, some leave you to it (these are the best ones), some have bizarre opinions about music. Here are some of my favourites: "Don't use shakers, they confuse children." "Make it sound like Firestarter." "Use one of those French pianos." "Make the drums bigger." Q: I too am a musician and I hope one day to become a professional composer for whoever may need my services. The only tool I have that enables me to put my talents to use is a little sequencing software program for my PC called Fruity Loops. Dave Wise: ... Robin Beanland: ... Eveline Fischer:: ROFL

Looks like this won't get posted this year.

Why did you link to your soundclick page and not put this song there? Poor recording and uneven, plinky performance for this slow, steady arrangement. The chord changes made are nice and well-placed, but are not supplanted with much development and instead just come and go. During the louder sections, many chords sound sustained far too long, flooding the sound. Rerecord. NO

There is no strong key in this song, yet no strong dissonance either, so it just fidgets in a state of discomfort. The melody is not changed, instruments are changed and added for the worse. Sounds like the song is playing from behind a wall; too much dampening reverb. The coolness of the original song is lost, and we're left with a boring, unmoving pile of a cover. NO

This mix is not significantly different from the last submission we rejected. Since you won't give us an nsf, I played the ROM to find out what little additions you did make; harmonic, leads, chords. Still sounds like a song failing to sound like a chiptune. The beat goes on and on and on and NO

Redownload it. It just repeats a lot. Delay on piano playing melody gets old. Strings sit in their sonic space like a brick of molasses. Very dry, airy mixing. Some attempts at changing chord progression made, but none are very good. Stock and boring interpretation. NO

Actually the judges said that, and djp should take note and put it in the submission page. This guy sent me the flp for this mix a long time ago, cause I thought the arrangement ideas in it were cool. Bass and piano parts are interestingly written, but writing them isn't enough; he needs to learn how to mix. Everything here is a mess. WASP synth is more annoyingly buzzy than its name. Things start to repeat and collapse into some kind of overbuzzed, hyperactive insulin shock. More practice with FL required. NO

Thanks for supplying the original, another very developed yet short song you've chosen to arrange. First, the bad. The 'performance' here in the instrumentation is very plasticky and cold, and not as inviting as it should be for such an intricate work. The piano especially reeks of plunkiness. But the good, and what invariably makes up for the lack of human element: the phrasing. It is both bold and very enjoyable. The acoustic guitar and flutes are very well paired to play off each other and keep the song rolling between dynamic peaks. The hand percussion is simple but seats the beat well. As Weed said, portions are gratuitous and abrasive, like the low piano and upwards guitar passage at the end. The pure lack of human touch in this compositon leads me to believe it was created by a systematic robot gone awry that wants its audience to feel the same. YES

I don't like the whole, but I like each instrument on its own. The bass, piano, xylo, and strings are all nicely written; unfortunately, they aren't well sequenced or mixed, thus the whole sounds like a stiff, stolid, midi-ish mess. Some awkward off-notes sprinkled throughout. NO

Intro is long, but bearable. Here comes the techbeat, and it's kickin'. The mixing/processing here is impeccable. Now to check the source material and make sure you actually arranged something... eh? This is apparently a new game on PC, PS2, Gamecube, etc. These submissions that don't supply hard to find original material are a waste of time. Sent email.

I wouldn't say the intro is well-orchestrated, it's muddy and just kind of boring. Anyway, that's not important. What is is that the mix tries to follow the original exactly with worse instrumentation and execution, beginning with a lead synth that sounds worse than the spc's, a semi-flat guitar part, a sudden solo sax section with awkward trills, a repeat orchestration for the ending, and of course, the drumloop. This is a cover, and it's a poor one at that. NO

1) No such hard-line policy was ever actually agreed upon. Make-believing it was in #ocrjudges doesn't count. 2) Just call it electronica. 3) Aaron, you might want to actually vote on the mix. As with GeckoYamori's other work, this shows good mixing and production. But even though originality is at least attempted here, this is similarly an embellished step-down from the source material. Repetition, lack of dynamic contrast and development, and a terrible ending - style notwithstanding. There's absolutely nothing wrong with arranging a song in the same 'style' as the original, but there is a problem when the arrangement is weaker compositionally and just less solid. NO