prophetik music

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

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

@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

Hey guys, This is my version of Sakura's theme from SFA2, which is a bit of a fan favorite track if I am not mistaken. The point of departure here was, like my previous submission, using sounds similar to (or inspired by) the og CPS-2 board, but I took a song in a very different direction than the original: it's slower and a bit more wistful. In retrospect, I think it sounds a bit like City Pop ballads? Games & Sources Stage Sakura - Street Fighter Alpha 2

opens with just drums, before we get an FMy bass and some distorted drum elements. it was a touch confusing what was going on in the drums at first, but once the more electronic/effected elements came in, it was more clear what was going on. coming in fresh, the opening drums sound strange due to the effecting on them, but they do fit better once i have context. melodic material comes in at 0:16. i like the distortion on the melody line, and i like the little harmonic shouts in each ear when they come in. i don't like that it's pretty static of a sound with no lfo or delta on sustained notes. there's some backing elements here - bells and an organ maybe? - and they're very oofy and heavily verbed while the lead, drums, and bass don't have any verb that i can hear. those backing elements really feel surprisingly dense. being in the same range as the melody doesn't help, and when they go lower for the second part of that first melodic phrase, it sounds very dull and congealed. the cymbals throughout this section are also essentially just static - the part at 0:30 is actually kind of shrill. mixing up the lead at 0:49 is a good idea - it has some delay on it and sounds so different simply because of that bit of effecting. it also doesn't have anything that helps the sustains sound less grating, which is disappointing. 1:20's a recap of the melody. 1:30's the same as 0:49 to my ears, outside the panning of the melodic blurbs, but there's some minor added harmonic elements on the back half that help it not be completely copied. 1:50's a big dropoff - i wouldn't have minded a more gradual falloff there. the bells in this next section are nice but the hard panning felt a little weird in headphones. at 2:16, animal got tired of the slow dancing at Fozzywig's Annual Christmas Party and kicks it off for a bit, but after one pass, it's back to being quiet again with another hard transition for a bit before it builds back up for one last blow. at 3:01, we've got (i think) the fourth time we've had the melody in the same instrument coming in with the same ascending line. luckily this time there's some changed elements in the melodic representation, but this would have been a great chance to mix it up and not do the same sound again. there's the ascending single chord bit and it's done. the different background synths end at different times, which i'm not sure was intentional. for a track that's 3:30, it's surprising that the texture is the same for almost three of those minutes. the loose, heavily reverbed organ and bells in the background alongside the very not-verby lead, bass, and drums never changes. combined with the lead never really changing after that first change at 0:49 makes for a very static soundscape, and it got tiresome after a while. the melody's always in the same range, it's almost always represented the same way with only minor changes until the very last time, it always has the same chords, and while the backing drums do mix it up and do some neat stuff, the rest of the arrangement feels like it's missing some development. i liked the concept of the quieter sections to help give the band sound punch when it comes back, but in my opinion the first break comes too late (feels like it should be at least 30s earlier in the mix), and the transitions in and out of each section are very abrupt. the energy management feels lacking as a result. some transitional elements would help a lot to manage that, as would giving those transitions a bit of time to breathe. i think you've got some really interesting ideas here, and there's obviously a lot of craft that's gone into the drum work especially. a set of backing elements that more closely fits the soundscape, some more intentional and careful transitions, and more attention paid throughout to making the melody line unique and different each time it's played (via instrumentation, lfo on the synths, altered chord work, more personalization, changing ranges...) would really move the needle on this one. as it is right now, it feels like you're close but not there yet. NO

For the Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon album project. When reviewing the Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon soundtrack, this track immediately stood out as a bop. Of all the tracks, it resonated with me the most as a drummer. I already loved the original drum part, so it felt like the perfect choice for the "drum kit" highlight on the album. I started with a basic arrangement, honing in on the drums. To emphasize their presence in the remix, I decided to feature both an acoustic and electronic kit—using ML Drums for the acoustic elements and crafting my own electronic kit from chip drum samples and sound effects. After several iterations of the drum parts, I asked @paradiddlesjosh for feedback on MIDI programming and articulation, refining the feel to make it as realistic as possible. With the drum tracks starting to lock in, I moved to refining the rest of the arrangement around them. The energy felt a bit one-note, so I experimented with softer, dreamier sections to add contrast and break up the loop. This also gave me a chance to explore different drum textures and the full range of a kit. Once everything was in place, I fine-tuned the mix to really make the drum parts shine, with valuable feedback from members of the OCR community. Games & Sources Game: Panel de Pon / Tetris Attack Song: Lip's theme / Demo

opening is indeed adjacent but not quite the same as the intro. that ascending string riff into the melody line is pretty recognizable though! 7/8 for 0:29 is a revelation, i love that change - it emphasizes the already heavily rhythmic approach of the original. i liked the backing feel of the solo especially, and felt that was very Metropolis in feel at least initially. 1:46's new chord progression made a lot of sense and sounds great, especially when it gets harmonized. i wouldn't have minded a bit of vibrato on the lead guitar for a few of these sustains. 2:37's transition was surprising but does make some sense based on how the Terran campaign's music works. the sustains on the initial keys made it sound a bit cheesy, but it quickly settles into a better feel. this section overall feels a little less baked - the bass guitar is kind of far in the back and hard to hear, some of the synths are a little thin, the texture at 3:07 is fine but the lead's pretty light. i liked the solo line over it, especially starting at 3:30. 3:36's transition and backing parts are a bit on autopilot in the drums, and the guitar isn't quite as big as i'd have expected for this section, but i like the transition into the 4:07 section, and that section does a great job of providing some different textures that we haven't really felt. there's a jump into 4:22 as the tempo picks up, and then there's an outro section recapping the 7/8 section from before. what a fun arrangement overall! the track is so obviously Starcraft that it was very easy to grab onto the arrangement elements and just enjoy the total package. from a mix perspective, my biggest complaint is that i felt that the drums lacked some punch throughout. i would have liked a more present kit, i think, and a more dense kick especially. but the track still rocks and this is absolutely not a dealbreaker. excellent work exploring a classic track. YES

opens with some moving clarinet, and that moving line quickly passes between each part. this unfortunately highlights the difficulty in chamber music that's remote - it's so hard to truly pass off lines like this in an even fashion, although you do a decent job here. 0:35's sustains are a nice change. the repeated notes under those sustains really needed more intentional dynamics in the performance. there's another recap of the moving lines moving around with 'pizz' underneath them, and this sounded similar to the opening but voiced differently. there's a few obvious mistakes in the bassoon line at 1:22, although admittedly that's a tough range. i really liked the passing-off of the phrasing at 1:27. the following section has some more counterpoint which is nice. i'd have loved to hear even more interweaving of parts here, and especially some more dimensionality - spreading out the ranges a bit to fill in the chords instead of having everything so tight would have really added space. the chorale section at 2:09 is another space i'd have loved to hear with more range on the parts. shifting to ensemble articulation at 2:23 was really nice too. i wasn't as big a fan of the subsequent silence in the sax solo - it loses some energy and then tries to get right back into it, and loses something in the process. there's some more consistently moving counterpoint for a few more seconds, and then we get one last chord and it's done. from an execution standpoint, the arrangement is overall really solid. i appreciated the contextual changes between the articulated elements and the more sustained sections. there's enough repetition of concepts to hold onto without being overly repetitive, and there's a nice payoff at 2:09 with the chorale (although i'd have liked to hear more range explored on the instruments there). from a performance standpoint, i found the alto to be both too present in the mix and too sharp a tone as compared to the other instruments - a touch of EQ to tone down the edge on it would have really helped it mesh better with the other instruments. intonation across the board is fine but not stellar, and timing is pretty darn good considering the recording method. i think this is definitely a good representation of the medium and the original. performance is pretty good considering it wasn't done in-person and the arrangement has a lot of good contrast. nice work. YES

opens with keys, bass, and some limited drums. the keys in particular don't really speak very well and it's hard to hear what they're doing. everything's pretty slammed - especially the bass and kick are causing other instruments like the cymbals to distort audibly. melodic material comes in at 0:34. same drums from the intro are underneath. this trucks along through the A and B themes (the more smooth melody and the arpeggiated section), there's some fills and new patterns at 1:43 which is nice, although the instrumentation is staying the same here. at 2:08 the first drum groove is back, and the honestly the feel here is pretty hip with whatever the plectral instrument is behind the keys. the drums are just so bland. melody comes back at 2:43 way up high - this would have been a perfect chance to mix up the lead with something else. it goes through the melody the same that the last several passes have done, which feels tiresome at this point. the mix goes through the same A/B pattern that second time, there's a bridge-like section that i can't hear what the melodic material is, and then that bridge section turns out to be the outro and repeats several times copy-paste style until a fadeout occurs. this has some moments! there's definitely a fun feel to it in several spots. right now the mix is really blown and hard to hear, so that's a problem. and separately, the arrangement has some nice bits, but overall it's the same thing twice through and then an outro. i'd like to hear some use of dynamics (ie. breaks in the beat), a more logical song form, and less repetition. NO

this reminds me of something i'd hear on echoes. i don't think it makes sense to do a timing walkthrough on this, so i'll summarize. the timbral expansion here is significant and reflective of other heavily adapted arrangements we've had in the past. i appreciated the use of the entire sound stage throughout, and the willingness to explore elements that in general we don't see explored (mostly timing elements, a 180-degree soundstage, and some phase concepts). i agree with chimpa that the arrangement is fine and we don't need timestamps - in fact, had the chords been altogether different but consisting of the same pattern and roughly the same function, i'd still have said it was OK. i think that this is an excellent example of a style that we don't see near enough, given the volume of ambient/non-melodic tracks on popular soundtracks. i would have loved even more messiness and exploration in the first half, to be honest. but what's here is great and i appreciate it a lot. YES

my last vote centered around the oppressive feel of the mix and the limited sound palette, as well as some of the extended sections with a minimal amount of stuff going on. opens with some nice creepy arps and some woobly pads around the lavender town arpeggio. melody is there right away in some lower synths, and there's some sfx and a slow build into when it all hits at 0:56. the kick and bass have more punch this time than the last time i listened. the melody is carried by a distorted synth that feels kind of bland initially. there's a break with just some bass and snare at the 1:33 mark, and then another build (very similar but not quite to the first one) into a big bass triplet/gallop section. the track still feels kind of empty through here as it's primarily [bass and drums] and [arp] and [lead], and there aren't really a lot of other things to fill up the middle of the soundscape. there's a big style change at 2:25, led by a new bass groove, but it only lasts a few seconds. the subsequent break has a lot more body to it than it did the first time around, and the build has a lot more verve. i'd have liked a different kick fill than the last two. 3:13 is back to a similar feel as before - and, most damningly, it continues to use the same five or six elements. it's the same reversed arp tone, the same sweeps, the same lead tone, and the same bass riff as what started at 2:25. there's only so far you can stretch the same few things, no matter how much rhythmic variation you give each element - it really just sounds like you're alternating previous loops. 4:15 brings back the rising aleatoric sound with some heavily gated pad synths carrying the melody, but they're hard to hear. there's some subtractive elements for the ending, and it's done. it again cuts off hard instead of having a true fade. i think that, from a mastering perspective, this is a lot more listenable now. it's still loud and aggressive, and that makes sense from a stylistic perspective. my issue is that at no point does it actually feel upbeat and intense. all of the lead choices are very bland, and the lack of variety of sound choices behind those leads really makes it feel very rinse and repeat. separately, there's rarely a time where i feel the soundscape is filled out - i'm pretty sure there are pads going, but i rarely can tell they're there, and there's such a huge divide between the high arp sound (that never ever goes away) and the bass/kit that it's hard to connect them. i do think it's possible to use five instruments over a five-minute song and make it work. this track isn't doing that - there's enough variety in what's being said, but who's saying it becomes stale quickly. if you trim back some of the repetition (this track could probably be 3.5 minutes max pretty easily), and then focus on more intently crafting your soundscape and your lead choices especially, i think you'd have a much stronger track overall. NO

Original Decision Well I'm back, and thank you to the Judges for both being kind enough to suggest resubmitting and giving detailed feedback to action! So same story as last time, this is heavily inspired by what I'm listening to currently and right now that's Mandidextrous (Techno on My Mind) since she's in town this weekend! The other big thing that landed between last time and this is Reason 13, with an integrated sidechain tool that absolutely rocks for intuitive use, plus I discovered the Europa synthesiser rack extension (basically Serum for Reason). So with that in mind - addressing judge feedback and with a LOT of back and forth courtesy of the workshop channel on discord: - Stripped back the sausage significantly, removing the limiter and backing everything back to 0db before starting the mix again. - Added heaps of automation through the entire song to help drive build/decay elements and move the narrative along (yes it has a narrative - we arrive in Lavender Town, discover the truth of the tower, run from some ghosts and end up battling Sabrina - but did we win? At what cost?) - most significantly, totally replaced the bassline in the first section with a big filthy reese bass, cribbed from Neuro DnB. A friend dubbed it Neuro Hardcore. - added a couple extra layers of synths and relaxed out the main arp/chime sound to reduce the total overload. It's still heavy hard club music but maybe not quite so oppressive now? - this one is directly responding to Rexy and the fast triplets - added a phaser element to give that section some motion, but also rebuilt it to use a hand crafted laser effect (heavy modification of the earlier mentioned reese). In fact all of the synths have now had manual intervention to remove that "stock" feeling brought up by Liontamer. I think the end result is... Well, nowhere near what I originally intended this track to be, but it's a lot of fun to play loud and dance to (and make stinky bassface to in that middle bit 🤣), and I think it delivers on the promise of the extra long buildup at the start now. As bonus for me it mixes really well with Techno On My Mind so yay, I can play it in sets! Crossing fingers and toes, look forward to hearing back from the judges! Apologies for the external link, I still can't get the uploader to play nice. Games & Sources Pokemon Red - "Lavender Town"

my last vote was pretty flip-floppy, but ultimately i settled on the side of the crunchy chords being too much, and the repetition in the backing parts and the execution of some of the synths needed work. opens with some spacey stabs and eventually a nice meaty bass tone. melody comes in on the guitar at 0:41 (it's a bit loud initially) and then is passed to the lead synth with some rhythm guitar underneath. the first break hits at 1:22 and i especially like the tone of autopanning arp here. there's one more short recap of the melody in a middle voice at 2:02 (probably could start a touch louder) and then we get some guitar solo work. there's a bit of a bridge which works well to mix it up a bit, and then some more handing off of the melodic content before some outro content that goes on a bit longer than i'd have expected. i think this is a lot more cohesive of a package this time around. the variety of drums especially really helps each section take on a voice of its own, and the 'fixed' chord elements allow the track to speak cleaner. YES