prophetik music

we talked about this internally and ultimately made the decision to reject this due to the format (six discrete tracks that transition into each other). we've had a few of these where it's a full EP or album submitted as a whole and done this as well. if you'd like to submit your individual tracks, please separate them with normal start/end points and submit them separately. Seven Songs for 7th Saga is an example of this. NO OVERRIDE

opens with some stacked fifths pad and an interesting filter sweep sfx. i agree that the initial lead doesn't punch through at all, there's gotta be something on it to make it pop. there's a little movement on the drums which i like pitch-wise in a few of the fills, but i did notice that the same snare fill got used several times before the 1:00 mark. there's a nice break at 0:50, well-timed, and i liked the smaller kit there for a bit. around this point i really felt like the lead was a placeholder and was waiting for the real instrument to come in - it just doesn't sound strong enough to be a lead at all. there's a fade transition at 1:08 that i really didn't care for - reminded me of the sample tracks i used to hear on myspace =P i'm too trained to assume fadeouts are endings, it felt strange as a transitional element. 1:09's got a neat rising element which was fun to hear. still no change to the lead by here, and there is not much going on from a pad perspective on this section so it feels a bit empty. i liked the rhythm of the percussive elements matching the melody, that was fun. 1:28's got some more updates on drums which was fun to hear, and there's some playing with sample duration in here too which was a neat change. 1:58's a recap of some of the earlier material with some new ear candy to catch, and then we get some descending action at 2:19. introducing new harmonic material right at the end of the track and then fading without a resolution or prep might not be the best idea - at the very least, providing a more clear closing point to the track would help a lot. i love to see you branching out! i think that, like gario said, a big element to change would be to beef up the initial saw lead that's used throughout, and to focus on setting the soundscape up better (being careful about pad usage, consistent verb usage, and spacing within the freq range throughout). i'd also point out that there's not really a strong direction throughout the piece - it feels like a bunch of disparate parts. identifying a way to pin everything together better and lead from section to section would help a lot, i think. NO

immediately recognizable opening, even with the cimbalom. the track feels very early PC with the vocal patch, which is a fun coincidence. it's a very spare atmosphere you've created here - often only a few individual notes playing at any given time, and a surprising amount of unison up front in the couple of instruments you're using. 0:50 brings in some more activity, and the cimbalom really works well for this realization. 1:18 adds in the choirs in unison with the low strings, and i like the idea but think the execution isn't quite there. it's just too robotic in the cimbalom and doesn't sound particularly realistic in the strings/choir. the cimbalom-only section after this has some more velocitization on it which is nice, but it's audible where the velocity pattern repeats. the subsequent building section at 1:57 is nice, but the partwriting is pretty simplistic in here and heavily weighted towards my left ear. there's a wrong note in the bass at 2:21, and a few (probably but not sure) notes that aren't in the key soon after in the middle voices. this shifts to a new section at 2:35 and how consistently the cimbalom has been hammering away at roughly the same volume and attack speed throughout the song becomes more noticeable in here. the lack of true velocity changes (particularly to more quiet tones) is starting to grate by this part. there's some intense building action until the big hit at 3:26, and this section sounds pretty exciting. it's also very muddy and boomy due to the orchestral toms being used. there's some neat evocative feels in here but overall the use of heavy unisons and no part-writing in the supporting lines really kills the energy for me. it ends with a kangling note that is cut off, and it's done. this is a really neat idea! i think there's definitely legs in the arrangement - the combination of old-world instruments is a really neat one. i think first off that there's a lot of room for partwriting that isn't just unison strings and choir layered, especially with the richness of the chords uelman uses throughout. separately, i think that there's a lot more room for nuance in all the instruments - most of them feel like they stay in the same middle range of velocities, and there's no dynamics in the instruments as a result. a track that is so intentionally sparse in instrumentation needs to then be super careful in how it uses those instruments, and i don't track that here. i think this is a great one to bring to the workshop or a wip review and have some folks talk about how to flesh it out a bit more without losing the feel. right now though i don't think this one's where it needs to be just yet. NO

uninspiring original. it sounds like this is using a keyboard that's got a synth guitar patch and recorded on a cell phone. i can hear the buttons being pressed pretty clearly. either way it's just two minutes of meandering noodling that doesn't really relate to anything that's in the original. if indeed the right audio was uploaded, it's not anything for the game. this doesn't appear to relate to the game, and it doesn't meet most if any of our standards around sound quality, arrangement, or execution. NO OVERRIDE

unfortunately this breaks a number of the Submission Standards. while 1.1 details a wav requirement with no size restrictions, it's reasonable to assume that a 1.4gb file in 192k 32-bit float is excessive. while your track does contain content up past 80khz, our ears don't, so that's not really needed. 3.1 specifies that the music for the arrangement must have been actually used in the game. this does not appear to be true. 4.2 details what constitutes an arrangement. as this is instead something original to you, none of this is fulfilled. 4.3 details a requirement around identifiable and dominant source material. there is no source material used, so this isn't fulfilled. 5.2 details production requirements. none of this appears to be followed. 6.1 details evaluation requirements. the ownership and source material requirements are not fulfilled. we aren't going to be able to evaluate this, nor does a track inspired by but not an arrangement of vgm have a place on OCRemix, unfortunately. it's an interesting exploratory piece when it's not scaring my cats away from my desk, but ultimately a mono solo improv like this isn't going to have wide reception. NO OVERRIDE

Persian Improv Sword Marth from Super Smash Bros. Melee. Marth was one of my favorite playable characters from this game. I bought it in February 2002. The 5:00 mark is loosely based on the oil level from Sonic 2 for Genesis. This song is roughly based on the Persian scale from The Guitar Grimoire: G-G#-B-C-C#-Eb-F#-G The book has about 40 different scales in it by the way, you should check it out. It made this song possible as I learned it in 2005. No, I am not sponsoring them or accepting any endorsements from them. Epic sword battles have taken place from Marth against Donkey Kong, Ganondorf, and Falco. Marth and the final opponent are both at 100% damage, one life left each. This is battle music folks. There’s a fire flower, proximity mines, and poké balls. Who will win? The sound bank you hear comes as MONO by default and I wanted to explore the realm of a solo improv piece using a MONO soundbank. The Lo-Fi sound here is killer like Dave’s Killer Bread (the bread even shows this guy playing a guitar lol). I just keep hearing epic sword battles from Marth, as he is one of the quickest and most agile characters as well. I am not sponsoring or endorsing that bread either people. I have perfect pitch, so I am navigating the keyboard improv MONO. Creativity is in demand by ethical people, this proves it, no? OK, so, the song is 8mins 15 seconds long, but this is an improv piece, one that I cannot really get down to a "T". Please forgive me for making the song more than 7 minutes. I hope this song will be an exception to the golden rule here. The Upper Maridia song from Super Metroid would be one of my next contenders in a song for OCRemix (besides a long-lost OCRemix tune). Thank you! — dolphin92329 Games & Sources Marth from Super Smash Bros. Melee for Nintendo Gamecube. Not a soundtrack, my interpretation of Marth. So, yes, is VGM.

opening synths are pretty basic - just a verby arp and some drum machine samples. lead comes in soon after this point and is a wide, fuzzy lead that sounds pretty dated. there's some odd notes right after the 0:30 mark both in the melodic and countermelodic synth - there's a lot of switching between major and minor, and it doesn't work well. the track autopilots through the melodic material a second time in a row in a very similar fashion to the first, and there's a shift to a less beat-driven sound at 1:34 for the B melodic material. the track switches back to the A material for a third time at 2:20 - lot of repetition already! - and does some more similar noodling through the melody before it's done at just over four minutes. i think there's a good concept here - a lo-fi, chill arrangement of the beautiful theme from the game - and i think this just needs more time in the cooker. there's no real dynamic shape to the piece, and that's something that needs to change to avoid it being boring. beyond that, improving the quality of your synthesis and drum elements and ensuring they're always doing something interesting will help a ton. i think the workshop's a great place for this one right now as it's not close to passing - iterating elements from most of this will make for a huge improvement. NO

Xenoblade Chronicles is a game that means a lot to me, and Yoko Shimomura is one of my favorite composers, so I wanted to try and recreate some of her work in my own electronic style. Games & Sources Xenoblade Chronicles - "Hometown"

opens with some podcast-quality voiceovers (that are legitimately hilarious-sounding). the instruments come in around 0:10 and are, as far as i can hear, exactly what the original is playing. we get some real drums at 0:28 but it's still the same as the original through here, and with how short the track is that's a concern. we finally get some added content at 1:03 with the sustained key bits, and some NES Zelda theme riffed in. it continues this way through about 1:58 where we start to get some fun arrangement elements with brass, a synth solo, and some funky riffs. but that's only maybe 20s and then the track's done =( there's nowhere near enough arrangement on this unfortunately. from a mastering standpoint, it definitely feels like it's coming out of a 386's speakers for better or worse. i wouldn't have minded a bit more punch to the overall feel - the bass synth in particular was pretty lacking. but the main knock here is that this just doesn't have much arrangement until the last 20 seconds. you can make an argument that we get something halfway through, but then half the song is just dumped from the midi at that point. it's unfortunately not enough based on the submission standards. NO

opening is just a weak bass, kick without any meat, and a lead that sounds like it's effectively just the original dumped in. the sfx helps but it's pretty blah throughout - there's little here that's really giving it uniqueness. it's the same 30s repeated twice, then a big kick dumped on top of the same thing (but the kick still doesn't have any beef to it) and repeated again. there's some clipping around 2:00. this needs some significant development before it'd be something we post here. i'd encourage you to work through some new ideas and mixing concepts on this, and then bring it to the workshop (on the forum or on the discord) to get some more feedback. NO

fun vibe at the start of this one. track feels like it's missing some compression and i don't hear a pad either, so the electric guitar's carrying the chord work. civla's voice fits the original's style really well. it's a touch ahead of the beat most of the time, and there's a bit of mid that could be scooped out, but i love the slow vibrato on some of the words like 'style', and the backing chord work in the vocals is perfect. coming back to the backing elements, i noticed that the electric guitar's a bit bland in tone. i would have liked to have a bit more verve on the tone. separately, there are several transitions that i felt didn't have much in the way of fills or anything (like between the first two verses). the second chorus's solo vocal part (the one doing fills, not the one doing the melody) was pretty hard to differentiate in situ. i think overall the vocals in this song are a bit loud, and there's not much you can hear there besides voices with three distinct parts going on. 2:51's a bridge section with guitar solo and some scratching. there's some fun ideas in the guitar solo, like for example the descending diminished chord riff. there's a chorus recap and then a fadeout, which normally i don't like but in this case really fits the style and how similar songs often end. this has a fun feel throughout! from an arrangement perspective this is very conservative. it's essentially the same song in an adjacent style with the same melody and several of the same major arrangement elements like the backing vocals. the best things about this remix are the vocals (which are note for note the same despite a great performance) and the melody (which is note for note the same). same chords, similar instrumentation, similar genre, somewhat lacking in a chorded element for some of the song (pad, comping piano, etc), less interesting drums and backing elements. it also has less dynamic range than the original, and feels pretty similar from start to end. from a mixing perspective, i called out a few of the issues with the vocals earlier (they're a bit dense in the mids, a bit loud as well). beyond that i think the track is mixed fairly well in that it's pretty easy to hear everything that's going on once it gets going. the first verse or two is a little thin. from a mastering perspective, the track is undercompressed to my ears and there's some density in the low mids (probably from the voice) that makes the bass not speak as well as you'd want. i might be picking here, but i feel like the lack of arrangement combined with a lot of disparate little elements on the technical side are pulling this down. if it was righteously mastered and sounded super good i'd still complain about the arrangement being so conservative, though, so i think my main concern is just that this is more of a cover than an arrangement. it's just too similar. i'd need to have seen more variation in melodic material, harmonic backing, or structure to say that this is more than that. it's still a fun song to listen! but all of the best parts are Bust-A-Move. NO

well, ok then. opening is definitely a stylistic mashup. love the way you took metallica's vibe and make it work with these tracks so well. at 0:46, though, this is almost straight Metallica for like 30s straight. the melodic adaptation is indeed tenuous, especially when you consider it's two bars out of hundreds in the original (admittedly they are very recognizable bars). at least the chorus is more from the Rival track. the singing works great, it's realized well, and seph does a good job with it. i'm just not sure it's not too much metallica. the transition riff is back to the final battle riff, and then another verse (same caveats as before). the bridge works well to bring together the style and original into a better combination that's more in balance of the original. there's then 30 seconds of insane solo battle, because that's literally what the originals are about, and a bunch more instrumental sections that go through various elements of the sources. the end of the false chorus section at like 3:50 was pretty hip. the track cycles back to one more verse and chorus dyad, a quick riff, and it's done. the performances here are nuts, as expected. the three main performers are among the best in the local community at doing this kind of stuff, and it shows. there's a ton of synergy in the performance, it's intense and complex without being overly meandering or relying on tropes to make it work, and it's mixed very well by xaleph as well. the arrangement concept is also great. my concern is just that the verse's connection to the original works is essentially academic. it's tough to map the vocal lines to the original, although your timestamps make it clear once you've A/B'd it. i think what's here overall is probably distinct enough from Metallica to be ok. but this is the second really fun track from you guys that's come through recently that's been very, very close to a mainstream original. you need to be careful as you're treading a line here that we (the judges) don't want to more clearly define because of how subjective it can be. YES (borderline) edit 10/25: larry's numbers make it clearer than i originally thought that this is not 'probably too much Metallica', it's just plain too much. i didn't realize it was over a quarter of the track. sorry guys, sick track, but not for here. NO

Background: This one started as a random, half-joking idea in late March or early April: what if the final battle from Pokémon Gen 1 (Red, Green, Blue, Yellow) was done like "Damage, Inc" by Metallica? In my (ParadiddlesJosh) head, this is a slam-dunk arrangement: Seph and I listened to a lot of Metallica growing up and put close to a combined 300 hours in Pokémon Red and Blue, with a considerable amount of that time overlapping. Some of the riffs are kinda similar and the vibe for the source is frenetic enough. Matt (Xaleph) asked me to collab on a Mega Man arrangement he'd put together with Ryan8bit and Zack Parrish for DOD's Mega Man month (May 2024) and I'd heard the Rocket Knights do "Flash Man" from Mega Man 2 but it's "Seek and Destroy" from Metallica's debut record, Kill 'Em All. And I won't sugarcoat it: "Flash and Destroy" sounded like a very fun shitpost. I thought, "If there's a free month, a Pokémon month, or a Game Boy month coming up, I'm pitching this bonkers Gen 1/Metallica mashup." All I needed were willing co-conspirators collaborators and some lyrics. Lo and behold, July was a free month for DOD. Seph (PixelSeph) was on board to do guitars and, with some back and forth on the lyrics, vocals. Zack was on board to do bass. Matt suggested laying in some organ to pad in behind the guitar lines. But Zack had his own main arrangement commanding most of his attention and another duelist pulled him away for a collab, so he suggested a replacement: enter Cyril the Wolf. Cyril nailed the basslines. Continuing a trend of OCR heads diving into DOD, this was submitted to Dwelling of Duels during the free month in July, where it placed 12th out of 32 entries. Credits: ParadiddlesJosh (arrangement, drum programming, add. organ programming, VST guitar programming, mixing, lyrics) PixelSeph (guitars, vocals, lyrics) Cyril the Wolf (bass) Xaleph (organ, mastering) Joo *Johnnyz* Buaes on VG Music (MIDI transcriptions) Source Usage Breakdown: Lyrics: Games & Sources Pokémon Red Version: "Final Battle! (Rival)" by Junichi Masuda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXgAj5KdAC0 "Battle! (Gym Leader)" by Junichi Masuda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJKIrqO1Zas Pokémon Gold Version: "Battle! (Gym Leader - Kanto)" by Junichi Masuda; arr. Go Ichinose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJZBLs0-mEE Inspiration: "Damage, Inc" by Metallica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdekZoYoamE

this is a pretty hip original. this kind of offset between the ears is something that you never want to see in a track waveform: separately this is also not good: so this is essentially a guaranteed NO right now. but i can at least review it to talk through what's good and what's not so good. the opening elements would be neat if they were balanced between ears, but the sharp tone in the left ear is far too much. overall it's panned really hard which makes it hard to hear what's going on until it comes more centerline by about 0:37. i wound up just changing it to mono to be able to hear what was going on. the various synths are doing really disjointed things for at least the first thirty seconds - i honestly don't know what's going on in there nor can i parse what each instrument is doing. if you're attempting to ape what the opening minute is in the original, i don't think it worked. by about 0:55, it's more balanced and there's a recognizable riff going on alongside the continuing sharp left-ear synth. i believe this is the bass riff from 2:43, but i didn't hear anything else that was fitting around that area - no melodic line, none of the rhythmic elements, etc. this continued until the woobly synth from the beginning came back in at 1:41 and did stuff that i didn't understand again. some other synths that were off-key came in after this (like at 1:52) - this doesn't sound like functional dissonance, it sounds like incorrect notes. this section continued for most of the track and then ended suddenly, and the track was done after 10s of silence. from an arrangement perspective, it's not super clear what you're doing here. it sounds like you're hoping to work with the track in the original that starts at 2:43, but the lack of percussive elements or other strong rhythmic elements outside the bassline and the constant dissonances alongside the very loud, sharp lead tones really make it hard to pick out anything cohesive from your arrangement. i honestly recommend stripping this one back to the bolts and building it back up one element at a time. i'm honestly curious if this is a misrender and some elements were supposed to be percussive but didn't get the instrument assignments or something. from a mastering perspective, the hard panning and wild volumization across the board makes this borderline unlistenable. you're going to want to take a lot more time with managing the individual elements before resubmitting. NO

nickel creek's one of my favorite bands, and TLT is one of my favorite songs by them. i love how each chorus builds on the prior. if folks haven't ever listened to 'progressive' bluegrass, i highly recommend it. opens with a bell arp. the arp's really loud compared to the melodic element that comes in pretty quickly after. the strings that eventually come in are also really not great - they don't feel N64 to me, they just sound fake. the 'full' band sound comes in at 0:43, and the lead feels a bit weak in this section as well as slow (the attack feels a touch behind). there's no real bass through here either, but there is a kick. the lack of beater tone on the kick makes it hard to hear except for where you can feel it. sad girl comes back at 1:43, and there's some weird mallet strike tones through here that would add realism if they weren't repeat strikes next to each other. the strings come back in, and i'm still not feeling them here. the eventual synth lead elements that come in at about 2:34 are really loud, and the lack of balance makes it hard to hear what's going on. i like the patience that comes with the chords after this section, although i think they should be a little closer together as they're encroaching on 'too long since sound' territory. at 3:07 we get copypasta from the opening 40s, and then subsequently more copy pasta from the band section from 0:43 to around 1:35. there's a repeated phrase at the end, one last arp, and a few sustains. i think that the combination of these two originals works really well together. i like the idea of focusing initially on bells and then building up to a bigger band tone, and i like the introspective approach and patience that you show. i think that your synths are letting you down throughout, and your DAW's letting you down from a mastering perspective. everything that isn't a bell sounds cheap and fake, and volumization throughout is a mixed bag. this needs a good amount of work, but there's good bones here. i think that the discord or the workshop forum would help a ton with this track. NO