prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

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

feels pretty forward right off the bat. the drums sound really forward (adding a touch of wet verb and pulling back the dry would help a lot), and once we get into around the 0:10 mark it really sounds like there's some crunch there. joe's right, though, the vibe is excellent. i think what's going on at 0:54 is some long-tail lead notes clashing against what the keys are doing in the back (is the keys delay effect on there? you may want to turn it off). there's some distortion on the bass tone at 1:57 - i don't think that's intentional, and that's the crunchy feeling i was mentioning earlier. 2:50's fun, but like joe said, the mix feels messy. turning everything down a touch and then fixing the spacial definition of the kit and the EQ range of the bass will make for a much stronger overall feel without losing the tight band sound. i basically just repeated what joe said, but i agree wholeheartedly - tighter mix and this will be an all-timer. excellent, fun arrangement. NO

big drums and guitars right off the bat. this is pretty much a cover for the first minute or so, with most of the representation sounding similar to the original but with new instrumentation. the second half doesn't quite go in the same order, but much of the sections are repeated in various order, and then it's done pretty quickly. what's here is fun! but it doesn't appear to have enough arrangement to qualify as not being a cover, especially given the original's already kind of proggy. i'd need to hear more adaptation - realistically, much more, given how in-depth the genre usually goes - before i'd consider this. as a note, i can't hear much bass guitar in this master either. NO

opens with synth toms and a pulsing, driving beat centered around the chord progression outlined by the original's opening elements. there's a bit of melody at 0:32, but it's hard to hear to under the existing arpeggiating instrument. there's a break at 0:52 that admittedly sounds like something out of chrono trigger for a bit. i noticed here that the drums were pretty auto-pilot for a while both in terms of what they were playing and the fills being used. starting at 1:12 we get the melodic line from the original around the 2:10 mark for a bit. there's a break in the beat right after this for a bit, and then we get a copypasta of 0:22 (this sounds 1:1 to my ears, right down to the too-quiet melodic line) and then later of 0:52, and then 1:12 as well. so that's a lot of completely repeated material. 2:51 is some new material from the original for a few seconds, and then the track kind of peters out - no fill into the ending, no chord resolution, and the instruments seem to stop at different times. i think this one isn't quite done yet. first of all, it's just over three minutes, and more than a minute of that is a direct copy from earlier in the song. that's too much clear repetition - do something different! this can be as simple as mixing up your leads, changing a few chords, adding some countermelodic material, or updating the backing elements. along those lines, i found the drums to be extremely basic and same-y, even for a style that usually uses a base loop for most of a song. mixing up the drum fills so they're not rote and altering the beat for the middle a bit will make returning to it later that much more impactful. another issue is the not-ending is a real letdown. lastly, i'll call out that the melodic material at 0:32 isn't really audible, and it'd be great to get that bigger so that the correlation is more obvious. i do think this has legs for sure! i love synthwave versions of winter themes, i think there's something about the nature of the synth tones usually used for this that fit really well. i'd love to hear this with some more variation to the track and some extra ear candy in your approach. the workshop would be a great place to get some other feedback as well. NO

last time around, i was the first no in a cascade of five to flip this from 2Y to a full rejection. i didn't like the master or drums at all, and felt that the synths were pretty bland. most of the no votes centered around the phrase 'lacking verve'. opens with a big, throbbing kick and bass combo. snare has a lot more snap than last time around, and there's some other glassy synths around it to keep it moving forward. melody's in at 0:21 and there's more automation and movement on it than there was last time around. the time signature changes several times to accommodate for the noodly melody. 0:51's lead instrument is pretty blah and sticks around for a while, which is a bummer given the focus on this type of issue in the last submission. 1:16's lead combination is really interesting and different. there's a lot of chromaticism in there too, and the transition into the next section has a lot of neat stuff going on. the drums through here are pretty dull, but everything else is changing and varying a lot, which is neat. there's a big ritard into 2:00, with some sustained lower pads, and we get a significant transition to a different style entirely. the transition isn't super good but it works. this is a more straightforward synth-pop approach complete with a new chord structure. there's some synth solo for a bit, before we get some dx bells aping the opening melodic material for a bit before the track winds down in tempo. there's a last wash (no pun intended) of color on the last M7 chord and it's done. i think this is a lot more functional of a mix this time around. there's still some nits about lead choice and some of the textures here and there, and the end section isn't quite as source-y as the opening 2/3rds, but overall this is a lot better. thanks for taking the feedback and giving us back something better! YES

original vote Here's the original sub post: Lucas Guimaraes - Arrangement Eladar - Production, Mix, Master I took this song on because, while I love Golden Sun's soundtrack, the Lighthouse themes shine high., and this was one of the last important songs that needed to be done. Sometimes, my ambition eats me alive. One of those times was this song - When making this, and even now, my composition skills far outweigh my production skills. I had enlisted someone else before to help, and we were on a tight deadline. Thankfully, Eladar swept in and was able to turn the arrangement into gold - I was extremely thankful. I'd worked with producers for electronic type tracks before, but hearing how well this duo went is wonderful. Prior to, I'd never worked with him. Honestly? Finishing it was a miracle on its own. One of the aspects I appreciate the most about being a creator? Getting to demystify the other side. There wasn't any 'magic'; just a lot of hard work and determination. A lot of that stemmed from when I was finishing my masters degree. I hope everyone enjoys! And here's some new comments: This is where the joke "Louder master plz" comes from. I feel the original voting thread was pretty divisive, and we addressed a lot of the problems and added some new stuff here and there. And I'm happy that it's resubbed. One thing that makes the resubs a bit magical(?) in their own way is getting to reconnect with people that I haven't connected with in forever. Eladar and I hadn't talked with each other in years, and it took us several months of on and off communication to sync our times to get this done. It's weird cause, at the time, I was annoyed at having to resub it for small things. But now I'm happier with this version *and* I'm happier to connect again. Hoping a lot of fellow Golden Sun fans get to enjoy this, and I hope you all enjoy! Thanks once again to Eladar. Really, him and I tag-teamed this and he def deserves as much credit as I do. I'm still surprised the original was done so quick for the album. Games & Sources Mercury Lighthouse

my original vote had issues around the need for volumization, some drum EQ work, repetition, and some sections that were lacking in energy. opening still feels light on the bass and kick, and the snare is a touch loud even when everything's playing, but it's not as bad as it was in the last mix. the vibe is still really fun. i think the guitar part at 1:25 is new, right? that's nice to have something else happening there. there's some sfx in the recap at 1:49 too which is fun. i'm noticing the instances where the drum parts are not quite in line more this time around. 2:35's still kind of static with the marimba octaves - i wish we could get something simple alongside that to make it less static. overall, i think my main mix complaints from last time - the very loud rhythm guitar and the weird-feeling drums - are a lot better than last time around. i think the levels throughout are much more balanced, and i think there's some added content that wasn't there before. i don't think this is perfect, but it's much improved overall, and i think this is probably good enough to get it over the line. if it isn't, i'd focus more on helping the overall feel of the track not to feel like there's too much repetition, and getting more dynamics overall in the work. YES

original decision Arrangement: Mel Decision Bass: darmock Guitars: Siolfor the Jackal All percussion: DeLuxDolemite This arrangement was created for Dwelling of Duels' Party month in September 2024, and got 9th place out of 24 tracks. This was my first month participating in DoD. I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to arrange—some of my first choices didn't fit all the criteria—and fell back on the first Mario Party on N64, since I'd recently played that with a friend. Yoshi's Tropical Island is a jam, and got me inspired to dive in the prompt. While it's a fairly conservative arrangement, I've taken a more laid-back approach to the piece's beach vibes. This is the kind of party where you sit back and relax with a piña colada in hand or bust out the grill. Collaboration, not competition, you know? I've subbed the steel drums for guitars performed by Siolfor the Jackal, added some additional movement to the bass, performed by darmock, and added a bunch of additional percussion including a full drum kit part, all of which was performed by DeLuxDolemite. DeLuxDolemite also improvised a conga solo for the piece. In place of some of the default percussion from the song, I subbed in some samples from Mario Paint and Yoshi's Story. With the guitars, bass, and percussion, I did more processing of live instruments for this track than I have on any previous track and learned a lot about mixing everything. The drum kit was especially a learning experience; instead of working on one or two midi tracks, I have audio tracks for each section of the kit. This piece also inspired me to go out and buy some additional percussion instruments so I can play some myself in future arrangements. In fact, I've already recorded some for the next DoD prompt. :) I focused on redoing the mix from scratch for the resub, paying close attention to how the rhythm guitar and drums to address judge feedback. I also added a few spots with steel drums to reinforce the marimba per @pixelseph’s suggestion. Games & Sources "Yoshi's Tropical Island" from Mario Party 1, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda

i've never heard this original track, but it's a bop. opens with a big, bass-heavy approach right off the jump. drums come in soon after, but the bass is super-loud and way over the top of everything else. i think what the drums are doing is interesting, but it's hard to hear what it is. i like the significant verb and delay on the lead piano and the tone as well. there's some definite stepping on chords in the 0:44 range and right after - several pad chords overlap each other and makes for some crunch. there's a very random and funny break at 0:52 - for real, i'd love to hear more of that! - and a recap of what we already heard at 0:07. i believe that was pretty close to a copypasta. 1:21 is a big shift, complete with amen break and some other material that we haven't heard yet. again there's some pads stepping on itself here. we have to goofy break one more time, one more ascending bit of melody, and it's done in under 2:00. there's some really fun ideas here! the main concept is the sound test from 0:07 to 0:52 - this is an exciting and energetic take on the original that would be right at home in a racing game. the bass is far too loud and the whole mix is really messy, but the feel is straight out of Ridge Racer or something similar. i think if you use that as the core (fixing the chord issues at 0:44) and expand some more while improving the balance of the instruments, you'd have a really fun remix. i suggest checking out the workshop - either on the forums or on the discord - to get some feedback and refine some more. NO

@Liontamer @Emunator updated version in first post with slightly reduced high freqs on shaker. enough?

opens with a much slower and relaxed vibe than the original, for sure. melody comes in at 0:19 and there's some fun altered/extended chords in there that i don't remember from the original. this is definitely a city pop feel, i agree there. i appreciate the tight tone of the drums as well. there's a recap of 0:19 at 0:57 (it does sound exactly the same for maybe 20s), and some altered chords for the second half of the A section in the vibes. there's a bit of a break, and then we're into the B section at 1:35. there's some wooble on the leads here that's a neat idea - i didn't notice it in the earlier section. this section kind of just trucks through the material before getting back to the A side as fast as possible, at 1:54. it's a little noodly there, but the track finds where it's going when it gets back to the A material. around here i started wanting a bit of a break, and while we get a bit of one with yet another copypasta of the second half of the A section from earlier at 2:32. and then more copypasta - 3:00 is 1:35 again, with some changes on the second half of that section. 3:29's a recap of the opening, and this is also copypasta. this block repeats for a while and then fades out. so most of the second half of the track is repeated exactly =( i think this is a nice idea, and i like the execution of it in terms of synth choices and instrumentation. it's a real nice vibe. but the repeated material is excessive. one or two sections repeated is one thing, but this is half the piece. i think it's fine to repeat concepts as long as you're mixing up the next time it comes around - however that's not what's happening here. get me some variety! and then i'll be very happy to pass this. NO