prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

low opening. intro bass has some movement on it and seems like a dressed-up version of the original. beat and lead start at 0:17. the static tone to the countermelodic material is a bit tiresome - i'd love to hear some decay or movement on it. kick is also kind of blah - i don't hear sidechain, so it doesn't really pop as much as i'd expect for something like this. short break and a loop comes in for the drums at 0:59. again the kick doesn't pop, and the loop itself is kind of obvious, but there's some movement after about 30s which is needed. there's no pad through here either so the arrangement doesn't feel like it's progressing - it's the same as before, with different drums added in. the lack of change to the main instruments, like LT talks about, is also a factor here. 1:27 adds more drums but nothing else changes. same same, we need some progression to the track. even breaks in between the melodic representation can help with that - this is just hammering the melody over and over. 2:00ish is just the countermelodic instrument, and again, this is needing to be mixed up. there's a few different things in the drums but overall this is oatmeal. there's more of the same for a while, with different combinations of the same instruments doing the same thing. so a key problem here is that nothing changes. we don't get personalized melody, altered chords, new keys, new countermelodic material after the initial representation, not anything. this is a sub-one minute loop that's been stretched to over five minutes by way, way too much repetition. i'd seriously consider stripping it back to a minute at most, and then finding new ways to represent the general synthwave idea (which i think works really well, to be fair) in more unique ways. this is just too much repetition, and too much of a static nature. NO

i voted on this way back in 2022, and primarily had issues with a bunch of notes that were crunchy. tbh i don't remember it much. opens with some stutter synths and pads, and we get some percs to help it build in. the bass hits at 0:27, and i agree with joe - it sounds nice. the smooth lead is a fun feel, and there's a quirky repeated note in the background that's doing fun stuff. i wouldn't mind if the bass tone was a bit more sustained. the snare at 0:55 is indeed a bit big, but tbh i think it actually needs more reverb, not less (and make it quieter, yes) so it feels more sustained alongside all these other verby synths. the melodic material there is the first that we've heard, and it's fairly straightforward. there's a continued reliance on viio chords as outlined in the ascending skip section of the melody, and it still doesn't sound right. this is something i called out in my last review of the track - i'll try and spell it out more carefully here. the chord at 0:58.5 is a G# fully diminished (G# B D F, also called G#o or vii o in this key), and the bass playing something that sounds like an E. the detuning on the bass might be causing this, but overall, the real issue is that you're putting an E in the bass next to an F in the chord. you should probably just make this an E7 (E in bass, and E G# B D above it), and let the F in the melody be a passing tone (or move it around so it fits). this is an issue every time it comes around. after the melodic section, we get some ascending patterns around 1:22 in the lead. this is a lot of the same lead tone in a row, and may have been better served with a different tone here. and then, at 1:36, you use the same lead tone to do some fanfares (but lower than the other ascending line). this is nearly impossible to distinguish and just sounds overlapping and confusing. the following section at 1:50 is, in contrast, a nice change due to the new lead and feel there. i think you could have moved away from the echoed, gated, chippy backing synth as well, to help reinforce the difference. there's a fun little break, and at 2:18 we're into a new feel. again, the issue of the G# dim is back, and it's worse here. every time that chord comes around, it sounds like there's obvious dissonance. that needs to be fixed before anything could be posted. there's a short outro section in ep, and it's done. it's a little sudden, and maybe could have been prepped or fleshed out a bit more. this is a fun track, and i like the feel. the dissonance is still an issue and this cannot pass with it in there. i'd be happy to help you identify and fix it if you'd like - i suspect it's an easy thing to find. beyond that, the layering at 1:36 needs to be shifted around so it's able to be differentiated - probably by moving one of the parts to a different instrument. i think that snare could use some love too - i didn't mind it near as much as joe, but it does need a more natural reverb tail on it (and to be turned down) so it fits into the instrumentation better. i don't think there's an issue with the 808, as that's endemic to the style. i do agree with joe that the arrangement overall is fun and enjoyable, we just need to fix a few things and then it's ready for primetime. NO

we reviewed this on the 6/18 NO SHOW. in general, we all felt that this was too light on arrangement. there's little in the instrumentation (besides the percs/vocal elements) that isn't already in the original. there's some fun percussive elements, and i actually really thought that the vocal clips fit this song better than some of your others, but the arrangement made it a moot point. we gave some more in-depth notes on the show itself. i noted some copypasta in the backing elements as well. overall, this needs more of you, and less of mitsuda. NO

we covered this one extensively on the 6/18 NO SHOW. my big highs on this one were the guitars coming in at 1:00, some of the synth choices, most of what the drums are saying conceptually, and the bass tone at the end. my big negatives here were the lack of humanization in the drums, the overall lack of direction to the arrangement (it just kind of sits in the same place for a long time and needs more dynamic contrast throughout, especially in the drums), and that it feels right now like far too much repetition throughout (this could easily be >60s shorter). i'm not going to do a huge writeup as we went over it in detail in the live show. i definitely think what you've got here is a great framework. some more attention to the arrangement's shape and possibly getting away from the arp as the main element for a time in the middle will make that last third a lot more impactful. NO

Its a bird! Its a plane! Its another PS1 RPG!!! Someone on discord talked about specialists and people who focus on certain kind of games and styles and well, maybe that's me. I will reach out my little tendrils sooner or later but when I heard about the live Judge NO Show? I was like, I HAVE to get one in there lol. While not guaranteed or anything, this was also close enough that I'm fine with it out of my hands anyway. But to that point really, I also don't mind this out of my hands because I was finished this song a long time ago! That's because this song was made backwards lol. I finished the second half first as just something vibin for my tiny YT channel and myself. I liked it so much I didn't wanna touch it ya know? But i also wanted to do this song for OCR at some point....but I already did it in a way I love....but I dont wanna change it either! Arggh whats a musician to do?! Oh, I'll just add a looong intro and then fuse the two! That'll work....right? Lol, who knows and the two sides came together in a way I'm happy with, but lets be real honest here. This song is essentially three loops. Loop A, Loop B, and Loop B2 if you will. I think...it could be fair to say the song could, for some, overstay its welcome. But man I vibe with it so much, I had to do it twice haha. B2 is a bit different in small ways and as is my calling card at this point, has a vox over top. I think I said this before in another sub but i used to be self-conscious about that but now I embrace it! Anyway, almost done here. On the composition side I have consistently been weak in my percussion but I wanted to try and be free and spicy but it could be too...messy in the beginning. However, the back end is a lot more conventional (for me). Which makes sense because the two were made at different times. From a production standpoint, I tried to make the two sides sound similar enough so it wasnt jarring when things changed. I think its okay but I am biased. Also...every time I think about the percussion sounds fine to me it sounds weak to others so uh, im curious how that works out this time. Anyway, thanks as always and much love. Until next time. Games & Sources Source: Sailing ~ Another World Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda

this is a fun idea - i like name-based puns for remix genre adaptations. what's here is pretty upbeat and honestly an enjoyable concept. unfortunately, this is what we'd classify a cover - replacing instruments in the original with either new sounds or something that was performed live but not really updated at all. the performances are great, and i do like your instrument choices! but this doesn't meet our arrangement guidelines, specifically section 4.2 which calls out this situation directly. beyond that, from a mix perspective, there's no room sound nor is there really a complete job of volumization throughout, so the mix is uneven and doesn't sound as natural as it could with more attention there. this doesn't change though that this is a fun representation of the original! everything with your distorted lead is great, especially 0:41, and like i said i really like the concept. i'm sure this would get a bunch of listens on YouTube, for example, which doesn't have anywhere near as stringent of submission standards around arrangement. but for it to work here, we'd need more Orsi and less Nobuo in the arrangement. NO

opens with the keys. they feel a little low-poly - guessing that's part of the recording described in the description. drums come in at 0:09, and they're pretty straightforward. melody comes in at 0:18. there's a very active bassline underneath. piano underneath is lovely. the drums are pretty rote - they don't change much outside of specific fill sections, and the panning is pretty harsh (there's a weird cymbal effect and the snare both hard in the left ear). there's a nice pause at 0:42 in the melodic line, and it progresses then through the last half of the line before a short pause. keys are back in at 1:07 and we get a more chromatic version of the melodic material. the lead's nicely velocitized through here. there's some wooble on the leads starting at about 1:55 that's not my cup of tea, but is tastefully done. 2:17's another recap of the opening keys, and the opening drum loop joins it for a bit before a probably-too-long break and subsequently a recap of the opening section. this is copy-paste from 0:18 for over a minute, and doesn't really hit an ending as much as just a sustain in the keys on the last chord. there's no crossfade on the end and so there's about 15 seconds of sustain to nothing there. i think this concept - piano-driven backing elements played live, ballad drums, and a reactive arrangement that includes some nice space to let fun parts ring out - is a great one. i really like the piano playing as well throughout, although i would love to hear more variety in some of the repeated sections. speaking of repetition - the drums have some nice fills, but the in-between stuff is autopilot and very noticeable given how loud the drums are throughout. additionally, the last minute plus being repeated is both obvious and disappointing - you've got this great piano riff to start it off, so why not mix it up and add some different chords or patterns under it? lastly, the instrumentation doesn't really fit together, in that the keys have a bit of room sound on them, but nothing else does. it all feels very dry, and so the sequenced instruments really stick out next to the more organic piano. i really like the concept. i think that paying more attention to what the drums are saying so that they don't repeat so much, avoiding repetition in the arrangement throughout, and spending more time with the mix to bring the drums back, make the piano sparkle more, and adding some room sound throughout will make for a much stronger track overall. getting a somewhat more prepared ending would be great too - you certainly don't need to end on a root chord, but making it more obvious you're preparing for the end would help prepare the listener as well. NO

this is an awesome original. never heard of this game at all. opens with classical guitar strums and a few arpeggios outlined. the arpeggios - or, close enough - from the source starts at 0:12, and they're not super clean and rush a touch, but they're really organic and feel very real in my ears which is a nice feel. 0:41 brings in some melodic material, and this feel is really nice when everything's in time. there's a bit of a break at 1:16, and then we get into the riffing again at 1:27. this again gets off in time really pretty bad (1:27 is so rushed in so many places) and doesn't get back on until in the solo itself. i liked the solo section and especially the double-strumming at 1:56, very idiomatic. there's one more chunk of melody, one impressively in-time riff section in octaves, and it's done. this is a fun one! i love the stylistic reinterpretation. and there's some great feel to it, it sounds like something you'd hear special from a busker. the timing elements though are too obvious to ignore, and i feel like they aren't super complicated to correct, either. punching in some improved cuts and especially one of the shaker will improve the quality of this track tremendously, and wouldn't require any change to the mix itself. tracks this thin in terms of instrumentation need their other aspects to be rock-solid, and this just isn't there yet. NO

over 4db of headroom. opens with a nice filtered synth fade-in, and similarly a lead that's initially very filtered and fades in. there's the first real hit of everything at 0:29, and it's a nice sound - bass has a lot of space as does the arp. percussion comes in around 0:47 and it's very simple. however, up to this point, we're just hearing what made asgore good - if anything, there's less here than the original. there's the first real break at 1:05, and it's also still pretty much straight from the original - just slowed down with some nice synth choices being made. picks up at 1:26, and again, the vibe is nice, but there's nothing to my ear that's different from what instruments do in the original. there's a funky note at 1:44 that comes around a few more times after that. 2:05's shift is again a really nice texture - i love all the space in the synths. there's a filtered section after this as well, before a drop at 3:02. we get another run-through of the melodic material, and then a non-ending (not even a hard cut). that's a real bummer to end it. gorilla in the room - i don't think there's enough arrangement here. i think that the synthwave vibe is really well-crafted, and the synth choices are great - but the asgore elements sound lifted in whole from the original, right down to the heavy delay on the lead track. there's so little noga project in terms of arrangement. if you'd personalized the melody line, or added harmonies, or updated chords, then i'd say this was great and ready to go since the mix sounds great. but what's here isn't enough arrangement. i think making it more yours would be so simple and easy! and then it'd be an easy yes vote. until then, though, i can't pass this. separately, the lack of an ending is real bogus. even just landing on a chord would be enough, or doing a few bars of beat and bass before it drops. but what's here is almost worse than a hardstop ending because there's still some delay and verb elements hanging on, so it just sounds like you didn't render it right. NO

opens with a variety of dnb tropes. the big hit starts at 0:45, and it's an absolute jimmy dean factory. we don't really hear the melodic material from the original until 1:29. this sounds like a straight rip from 1:43 in the above video initially but then does eventually appear to add a few layers to it. what's here is the same instrument to my ears, though, and it doesn't really mix it up much outside of a few twangs. there's a big break at 2:14, and then the material from 0:23 comes back and the track goes through that stuff again. i didn't really confirm if it was an exact copy from earlier, but it's close enough that it doesn't matter. once it goes through that, there's a fadeout on some radio fx, and it's done. there's nowhere near enough comix zone in this to meet the 50% expectation - in short, this is a dnb track with a bit of comix zone in it, not a comix zone remix. reminds me of this one actually, complete with saucy larry. while i think the track is fun to listen to, it unfortunately doesn't meet our requirements for a preponderance of source material - in short, it needs more vgm referenced (and arranged) in order to be a fit for our site. i'm sure it'll do well on youtube though, it's an enjoyable track. NO

i think it's live - it sounds like this was stereo mic'd and the low mic was over the middle of strings instead of the pillar or closer to the hammers than you'd like. i agree it's overly dense. if it's not live, then it's very strangely EQ'd, and the overall lack of room tone on it also is hurting it. we often say that the fewer instruments that are involved, the more brilliant the arrangement and technical aspects need to be. the minute or so from 0:38 that is single lines in each hand is imo too simplistic for such an extended section, and separately there's a ton of very small tempo push/pulls that are organic in nature but are just enough to make me keep thinking about the tempo instead of the actual piece. if the recording was sparkling, or the arrangement was full and rich throughout and didn't have some bare spots, i'd call it good enough. but the combination of technical and compositional issues are just enough that i'd say that this needs more to make it over the bump. NO edit 5/7: apparently it's not live, which is impressive that it aped a realistic tone so well. i've used the maverick a bunch so i'm surprised i didn't recognize it. i still think that the lack of room sound hurts it and the EQ feels really boomy and low.

opens with synthbass, some guitar, and a descending glidey synth. it quickly picks up and gets a beat and a stuttering backing element. the beat is pretty toothless, but the concept is a neat one. some sidechain and a beefed-up kit would help a lot. the melody line comes in at 0:34 in a detuned lead, and later is doubled by the guitar line. i like the fuzzy tone on the guitar, although it feels oddly EQed. there's something in the left ear at about 1:02 where it drops in volume for a second or two (you can see it in the waveform). 1:06 is a shift to half-time. the drums here are inaudible almost entirely. the synth elements are neat, but most are fighting for the front and so sound like they're overlapping. there's some odd chord stuff at 1:33, and we get a recap of the opening beat with the descending glidey synth. there's some guitar doing the lead. i like most of what the guitar's playing, i just think the instrument is muffled and the mix is really dense in a negative way. like, at 2:40, there's this tight lead synth playing and a super-verby synth comes in over top and just dominates it, and you can't hear anything else while that's soloing. there's another break at 3:01 to half-time, same issues as before. the ending comes soon after - there really isn't one, it just cuts off after the second time through that half-time section after the weird chord thing. and that's that. i think there's some really fun ideas here! i like the sound of the guitar combined with a variety of synths, and for the most part i like your synth selection a lot. i think your drums are way too quiet relative to the rest of the mix, and the overall arrangement is fairly repetitive (it's A B A B, and while there's solo elements that mix it up, each section is repeated when it comes around again). but there's definitely legs to this idea, it's just a matter of fixing up the mix a lot and then finding a way to not make the second half's structure so similar to the first. i think there's a lot of opportunity for little differences, especially in what little of the drums i could hear. NO

fade in to start, with some pretty dull drums and big buzzy synths. the statement that this was made on a groovebox tracks (no pun intended) - the late 90s sound is right there. the whistly synth was a bit too high-pitched for me, it bothered my ears a bit. this trucks through the A theme and hits the B theme at 0:55 - on the downbeats, no less, which is a refreshing change from the original's slightly off-beat start. there's some noodling around the descending pattern that changes over time with the synths chosen, and then shifts to a bit of a chippy approach at 1:43 for a bit. the same fill keeps getting used for every transition, which is noticeable earlier but really starts to be obvious here. there's a whistle effect that comes in at 1:52, and it persists for more than a few bars and really becomes irritating after a while. there's some more build-up from the earlier drop and then it gets back to a similar vibe as the earlier representations of the A section. this feels pretty repetitive at this point, and there's still another minute left - this definitely needed a significant shift to feel different by this point, or else something else to really mix it up. one or two more repeated patterns from earlier as part of an outro, as well as a few sfx, and a fade-out finishes it off (but not before the last pattern cuts off, so we hear it just kinda end). i love the idea of a more beat-centric, energetic take on this theme! and honestly you did some fun stuff with this old hardware (it being >25 years old is nuts though). but what's here is just too repetitive even if the beat had more oomph to it. i think this needs at least a minute of repetition cut out, and some more transformative arrangement concepts brought in (at least to the second half) so it's not the same descending pattern being hammered over and over with the same fill in between sections for >4 minutes. separately, the drums really lack oomph - so maybe exporting from the RM1x and doing the drums and the mix separately would help. right now, this isn't there, but you've got some fun ideas! NO

opens with some stacked chords in the strings, and some piano outlining the opening main lick in the original. the strings are very dynamic, which is a cool effect, but both it and the piano don't have any room tone on them which makes it hard to place them aurally. additionally, the piano's playing isn't particularly idiomatic given the dancey tone and complete lack of velocitization on the individual notes. in short, every note shouldn't sound exactly the same volume - there should be some variation as you go up and down those riffs. beat comes in at 0:30, along with more sustains in the strings. again, nothing really has reverb, and the additional layered melodic material that comes in at 0:48 is too quiet relative to everything else (ducking your sustained strings below that melodic material would help a lot. the kit is playing catchy stuff, but admittedly i found the clicky, psy-like kick and spit snare to not be fitting the keys and strings quite as well as i'd hoped. this is a dynamic section though with a lot of movement, and i think that sounds pretty cool. there's a surprisingly long silence transition (this is probably 2x too long, but it's a really cool idea), and we're into the 3-3-2 section of the original. this is less mixed-meter-feeling than the original, and imo feels more settled than the original as well. i like what the piano's doing in here - it just doesn't sound real, unfortunately. there's a recap of the A section that starts around 1:31 and again layers in the lead part, but we then get a synth lead around the two minute mark that's a nice freshening of the atmosphere a bit - i'd love to hear other instruments doing stuff in here too, so it's not such a static texture. there's another recap of the A material with some interesting panning concepts for a bit, and track maneuvers towards the ending fairly quickly after that. there's not much of an ending - i think a hard stop ending like you do could work, but you'd need to mute the synth lead's delay so that it doesn't keep going after the last chord. the overall lack of reverb is an issue here - the soundscape sounds hyper-artificial because of that - and the velocitization on the keys is an issue especially near the end with the very fast runs you've got there. i also wasn't a huge fan of what felt like copy/paste for the A material each time it came around - some more variance there would have been great. your rhythm-heavy approach would have worked great for adding some altered chords in there, in my opinion. lastly, i didn't care for the kick and snare tones - the other instruments were more traditional (even the synth lead is a simple one), and the tone of those instruments i'd relate more to psytrance or something that's less dynamic than this in soundscape. i love the concept though! there's some really fun stuff going on here. if you get us a version with a more realistic piano performance, some shaping of the sound stage via reverb, and more cohesive instrumentation, this'd be an easy pass. NO

i love the energy right off the bat. and joe's right, it sounds pretty clean. it's just too close to the original for OCR. the submission standards talk about doing more than reassigning instruments. i'll note there's also some significant copy/paste going on through the middle of the work and when it nears the ending, and the last note is clipped instead of crossfading. i need to admit though that i really dig the vibe! i think it works great. there just needs to be more you and less original for it to fit onto the site. NO