prophetik music

this is an excellent example. this is an excellent point. my vote on it stated that i felt that it counted since there was another OCR that did quote text in a similar fashion. however, as MW pointed out, that's way less of the overall product in that remix, and it's text directly from the game. so i think my statement was incorrect. i agree with the above arguments and don't think it fits here simply because it isn't music, and the music it does contain isn't the dominant aspect of the remix.

it's a neat beat and the beat especially is super well produced. there's some variation in the background beats overall - the chippy synths at 1:51 are great - and the the variety of vocal leads is nice. the vocals aren't near loud enough for me to actually understand them without the lyrics sheet. the track constantly feels like it's waiting for a big chorus, but that's a stylistic thing and not necessarily bad. this is a fun listen, even if the lyrics are too low. YES

great intro. very nice atmosphere. the first playthrough of the melodic content is as expected - super mega ultra powered up drum smash time with the guitars playing it through in a pretty straightforward manner. i can't really hear the bass here, but that's fine since the kick is annihilating everything below 100hz anyways. there's a clear shift at 1:24 to a more cover-style approach - again featuring the guitar going through the original without much personalization. this goes through the melody twice and adds in the original counterpoint, then goes through the B section twice and back to the A material in the same way that it was handled before. this is all super linear and there really hasn't been any arrangement or adaptation at this point. at 3:20 it's right back to the B section again in the same way it was done before. and then the A is back in the same rock feel, etc, this is five minutes of music and essentially everything's been the same every time it came up after the first =( there's finally a shift at 5:05 - we get some new material based around the A's chord progression and a more heroic lead part. there's a significant drop after this at 5:27 for over a minute. this starts with some original material, then some nice arpeggiated guitar parts around 5:50 with the original chord progression but no direct melodic material. the snare here especially sounds pretty machine-gun. the verby lead guitar sounds great, though, and the build at the end is great. at 6:55 we're back to what we heard at 5:05 (hard to tell if it's different) for a few run-throughs, then we get the rock version of the A material. one last blow-through of the A section with some quadrakick and there's an extended chord to finish it. this is, like, 70% repeated material over and over again. i like the initial adaptation and ideas, and i like the break section, but there's so much stuff repeated exactly as it was done before. even just adding different countermelodies or personalizing the melody, chords, or instrumentation a bit would have made a huge difference. it's certainly mastered cleanly and clearly, but it is way too repetitive even for the style for me to pass it. NO

"finds his consciousness expanding to the point that it clips through the walls of his reality"...incredible two seconds of silence at the beginning that can easily be trimmed. agree with chimps that the panning is significant, but it's not too bad. it's got FTL-ish vibes in the intro with the synth selections especially. the drums at 0:54 are instant headbobbers, that's great. there's a big break around 1:44, and it drops back and lets the plectral instrument carry the chord structure for a bit. similar to the first section, there's a lot of additive elements here that build nicely to a big overall sound that's pleasing and creative. the harmonies at 3:30 or so are just great and do a good job keeping it unique still. there's another break right at 3:30, and we get some more beat focus coming out of that which is nice. another break and we get an outro that initially felt like a fadeout but redeemed itself 😃 the time change was creative and a neat idea to keep it fresh for the last fifteen seconds or so. this sounds great, has a good structure and arrangement, and does a great job reinventing itself over and over again. easy yes! YES

the breakdown from lucas is very helpful. this is a tough one because there's so much fun stuff in the original's background that draws my attention from the melodic content! it's just a great original 😃 lucas's suggestion to slow down the original by 50% makes a lot of sense - there's a lot more correlative material when you hear it at that speed. i don't have any concerns about adaptation of the original. it may be easier to consider it if you hear that he breaks up the a section into two 8-bar sections, and he often just repeats the first 8 rather than going to the second 8 with the resolution in the end. the other thing i heard a lot of is intentionally replacing the cadential chords with various predominant color chords, which is a barbershop trope but certainly makes it hard to hear where it's going. all that said, this is well over the bar in terms of content. in terms of the actual arrangements, there's certainly some high points for me (2:30's initial chord for example), and there's some parts that i felt were clumsy at best (the block chords right after it). but it's competent and executes barbershop tropes without issue. there's some fun references too, like ending on the maj7 chord before the outro as a reference to...essentially every mario soundtrack somewhere. the performance across the board is solid. i've got some personal nitpicks but it's not like it's getting re-recorded to fix timbral issues, so i won't bother writing them out. i do think that there is a lot of really obvious pitch adjustment used especially for unisons and perfect intervals, and it sounds pretty robo because there's too much pitch drift adjustment. but i get that you can't always just go punch in thirty takes of something, so i'm assuming that's what happened. i'm comfortable with lucas's breakdown and the original content in the track. the arrangement is solid and recorded well. the mastering is clear and never gets in the way of anything. there's probably complaints about the highly technical/synthetic nature of the arrangement, but i think this is absolutely meeting our guidelines. YES

what a neat original. elements of the armed services anthems in there which is fun. intro is def fun! mastering is immediately an issue after the saws, but i love the energy this opening has. the synth choice for the melody at around 0:18 is not my favorite - it's really generic and doesn't have much dynamic energy to it to hold up against a very active background. i'd encourage you to use something with more verve - maybe some LFO-based envelope modulation, or more activity overall. the lead at 0:47 is a great, active lead that's got some really fun effecting on it. the track goes back to the original more boring lead after that, and plays out towards a big sfx at 1:26. there's an extended percussion-less airy section with some fun noodling - i like the ideas here, but it lacks direction. something that's a little more rhythmic - not much! just a little - will help keep the track from foundering there. there's a big intense bit at 1:54, that drops off and then we've got what's effectively an outro. i think the outro's fine, really, but more transition is needed between the section at 1:54 and the ending at 2:07. from a mastering perspective, there is a ton of sub-40hz content which is causing there to be a lot of mess in the final master. rolling that off heavily would help a ton. from there, then spend some time EQing each individual instrument into its own 'shelf' of sound, so that everything feels like it's in the same place and doesn't have to shout over something else. lastly, work on balancing each instrument so that one instrument isn't dominating (i often turn the master way down until i only hear one thing, and balance i can hear everything even when it's quiet). that'll help with making the overall feel more even. this is a fun idea! it needs more technical work, i think. NO

intro feels a ton like the intro to the first track on Relics of the Chozo, that's a fun reference. the intro bass sounds pretty generic. i'd encourage you to add some space and a bit of treble especially so it's not so guttural. there's a lot of overlap around 1:00 with the low airy synths as well. the entire section at 1:08 feels really similar to the original, same timbres and ideas. the break at 1:44 is nice, and i like some of the exploration done there. 2:14's groove coming back actually felt kind of recycled, and would have been an excellent place to mix up the vibe. 2:31 has some differences but feels very similar to the section at 1:08. the fadeout doesn't do this track any favors. from a mastering perspective, there's a lot of layering in the low mids between the bass and some lower synths. i love the timbre of that low airy synth but it's making mud pies down there. i'm super on the fence about this one to be honest. i like the whistle synth, the percussion is interesting, and the initial vibe is really fun, but it's hard to hear a remix that's done with similar timbres and similar structure and similar layout and think that it's a totally different work. i think i'm just slightly on the negative side here. i think it's just too close for our standards. it's a nice track to listen to outside of the nits that i mentioned, just doesn't fulfill the arrangement requirements. NO

those are both very relevant and fair points.

the voiceover recording quality is distractingly poor. it's very noticeable and does not sound good, especially compared to how organically the saxes and guitar are recorded. i think that removing the heavy reverb and toning that back to be much more organic was a great choice from last time, but it still sounds like you recorded it on a poor mic. i feel that the diction, emotion, and pace are all fine, however, so my issue is more with the technical aspect. i wouldn't mind if it was the slightest bit slower, particularly around the 3:15 range, but that's more a nit than anything. the backing music is cute! the first set of backing parts are really enjoyable, well performed, and well-scored. the sax parts at 0:51 are distractingly off in terms of timing both initially and occasionally throughout the rest of the section. the lead is noticeably ahead of the beat, the the alto in the right ear is also ahead compared to the mandolin/uke and low winds. the triplet section around 2:00 is also really rough initially. it's distractingly bad when it happens. 3:44's attacks and timing are much better - this section sounds great. the bari's a bit wild and you get some air column issues on the recording (always record a bari sax off-axis so you don't get air pressure artifacts and volume changes due to the left pinky notes closing the column too far!). the resolution at 5:10 is beautiful. the writing at 5:15 is a cute idea. it's wildly out of tune, even not counting how strange of a choice the synth behind it is. the synth's overtones are so present that the instrument sounds out of tune with itself as it arpeggiates chords (same issue that you get from church bells, as an example). i get the music box idea but it sounds bad, especially next to wide vibrato and pitchy note cores in the singers. this part desperately needs some autotuning to level out the pitch drift and maybe tone in the width of the vibrato. the initial timing in the singers is also dissimilar. elephant in the room - this is a great remix *idea* if you take out the spoken word and just listen to the main remix. in other words, if Eyes on Me (Obsession) is a remix, so is this. that track is numbered in the three digits, though, so i get that it may be grandfathered in. as it is, though, i think there's more than enough here to count as a remix. that said, this isn't executed well enough. the voiceover sounds like it's recorded with a headset mic. the voices at the end are significantly in need of remediation. those two together are enough for me to reject this. beyond that, the timing issues throughout are troublesome but could easily be fixed via autotune software that autodetects notes and transitions - i've used it regularly for instrumental timing fixes in the past, and it's nearly flawless in this application. the ending musicbox synth is honestly difficult to listen to. even a glock would be a better choice there. these issues may be somewhat time-consuming to fix, but i think they'd make a huge upgrade in the track overall and the enjoyability of it. NO

my original vote criticized the scatterbrained mastering and copy/paste. let's see what we have here. 2.5db headroom. sounds much better cranked up imo. the bass is definitely tamed quite a lot! the synths sound like they're in the same bucket more than they used to be, so that's nice. the intro breakbeat is also actually break instead of loop, so that's nice too. the second iteration of everything continues to mix it up too, so it's not just the same thing. the break at 2:22 is needed and well-timed, and the shoutout from the horns is a good complexity. 3:02 continues to keep it mixed up too, even if we're back to what sounds like the first breakbeat loop. the transition and fadeout at 3:33 is still kind of sudden, but it's fine, just a bit extended. the tail can probably be trimmed to take 10s off with a better fade envelope. this is a great example of making a better track from some simple changes. there's so many more interesting things here now. nice work. YES

interesting opening. agree that the intro synth lick feels pretty flat. the track kind of chills around the original's arp with lots of noodling around between the lead buzzy synth, the guitar's sustains, and eventually some keys. there's a lot of intonation issues, specifically around the first lead instrument, and that's really unpleasant to listen to despite having some fun ideas it's handling. there's a quirky break around 1:46, and after about 30s of noodling, we get some post-rock style building into a full band tone that sounds awesome as long as that out-of-tune lead doesn't play. i actually like this a lot more than my fellow judges, i think. i found the ~90s where there was a lot of noodling around the initial arpeggio to be fun and interestingly handled. i agree that it's just a bit too buzzy to be enjoyable, and that detuned lead is just a huge fly in the ointment as well. the end is great and significant and i wish it was twice as long and had a longer tail. i think though that i'd consider this to be 'under' the bar by a little. NO edit 4/6: the intonation improvements on the lead that before were bad are much better, and much less bothersome. i'm good with a YES on this now. the popping artifacts that MW mentioned sound to me like artifacts from the instruments used, and while noticeable weren't bothersome to me since everything's so buzzy/artifacty as it is.

some clipping and really weird phases for the intro parts. it levels out at 0:33. right off the bat, the bass and the kick are both really quiet. this is a very, very guitar-forward mix to its detriment. it doesn't sound even kind of balanced right now. a glance at the waveform and it's heavily limited as well. i think there's enough arrangement here, but it's admittedly pretty conservative. the variety of backing textures and extra flair brought in by the leads are nice however. the drums overall are hard to hear but are indeed doing interesting things throughout. the loudest part of the mix via a spectrum analyzer is below 20hz, which is why it sounds so dense and muddy. a rolloff on this and something to bring up the highs are desperately needed. really everything needs an EQ pass badly. i can't pass this one as-is. it needs significant production attention. NO

thought i recognized this when i started listening. it's a great track that's fun to listen to. ultimately i didn't find overt source usage that was not included in MW's representation above. there's some stuff that's pretty close and i'd consider enough if we were at 48% usage and we needed a bit more, but it's a ton of new melodic content over the old chord progressions, and much of the track doesn't refer to the original melody so it's not even obvious what track it's remixing. unfortunately this doesn't meet our criteria for being able to be posted. NO

really obvious limiter pumping right off the bad. not a great sign given that it's just a fuzzy pad and pianos. the bongos are indeed really out of nowhere and don't feel like they're part of the mix. similarly, once everything comes in at 0:42, the mix overall sounds super dense with no treble. what's being played is pretty standard stadium anthem style stuff. there's a big drop at 1:24, some more bongos and a return of the keys, and then it blows through the melodic material (on a copy-paste, as far as i can see) and then it's just sorta done with zero prep or outro around the ending. from an arrangement perspective, there is a lot of repetitive material here done exactly the same. i get it, it's trance, you hear repetitive stuff all the time, but most trance is additive or subtractive in the way it approaches things (ie. pare it down, add more back in) to make things not just the same loop over and over. i don't hear that here. the altered chord progression is nice (aside from the third-to-last 'chord' that is just a unison and sounds weird alongside everything else) but admittedly there's very little outside the initial hook. it's not like the track has unique synth work, a special drum pattern or usage, or something else driving it forward. i'm on the other side of the fence from MW. i think this is too derivative of itself. even if the mastering wasn't dull and the pumping wasn't bad and the synth work wasn't very generic and the ending existed, i think the same hook being copy-pasted for over half the track on the clock is too much. NO

track does sound oddly mixed - nothing sounds like it's in the same place, with the snares feeling like you're watching someone play them through a door. the intro is cute, but just sounds strange. the synth with the arp at 0:36 is immediately recognizable, but the drum loop laid over it has a really heavy shuffle and it feels weird next to such a rigidly performed synth, and the snare fill again being rigidly quantized sounds really weird. the fadeout is way long for how long the piece is. you've got 30ish seconds of intro, barely more than a minute of material, then a long fadeout. it's not really enough time for transformative arrangement. i don't think this is really all there yet. it feels like a demo with some neat ideas but that needs a lot more polish. NO