prophetik music

opens with some detuned synths and a generally nostalgic feel. similar to the original, the beat subverts where the downbeat is initially and makes you realize you had the wrong feel in your mind, which is a fun throwback. the melodic content is pretty subdued and overall this is a very slow, loose rendition of the original. there's a break at 1:30 and that builds up from there for a while. the beat comes back in at 2:27 and it goes through the melody a bit more, and then there's some surprisingly ambivalent chords that play us off. this is a really low-energy track. i think that some of the j's will complain about the lack of forward drive, but i feel like this fits the feel really well. it's very patient and intentionally doesn't lean into the energy of the original, which i actually like quite a bit. i think this is over the bar. YES

This is a Christmas-themed remix to Undertale, because it just makes sense. It was originally made for An OverClocked Remix XVIII back in 2020. I wanted to submit it back then, but it was so close to Christmas that I just didn't... for some reason. I was in the mood to make something pretty and chill, something more hopeful and uplifting. You could say this a spiritual sequel to my old Zelda remix, "Solace." I released it as part of an EP back in 202, "Winter Pixels". It's a little looser and more lofi than my usual stuff, hopefully, it fits the new guidelines! Games & Sources Game: Undertale Source: Undertale Theme

opens with some percussion. the loop points are pretty noticeable with the first percussive element. it's super bassy and very wet to start, and there's a few harmonics (around 3.1k) that are hard to listen to in that opening section. bass comes in with the melody at 0:20 and it's just a massive blob of mass between about 45 and 200hz: it's very dense in here, and it feels pretty slammed especially in the left ear which is louder than the left. melody's in a percussive instrument, but it honestly sounds like there's more delay or verb response than there is melody. it's hard to hear where the attack is in the melodic instrument. as i listened to this opening section a bit more, i realized that i think that the original's playing real-time behind the added elements like synth, guitar, and effecting (just start the original's youtube at like 30s in). i think it's being chopped up and looped, but i think that's why it's so dense-sounding. the instrumentation elements are playing exact matches from what i can hear. we don't disallow sampling the original in remixes that we post, but we do require arrangement that is transformative. this is quite literally just the original audio with a small number of additional elements layered on top and a really, really bass-heavy master complete with huge reverb added to the entire thing. not only does not this not pass muster on the engineering side with the mix being so dense and boomy and most attacks not being able to be heard, it also doesn't pass on the arrangement side given that the arrangement is essentially not yours throughout. this isn't something that we'd be able to accept. if you wanted to rework it to feature your own instruments, and focus more on the arrangement (since there's essentially no personalization here), then that's something that we can work with. this isn't even a cover, though, it's the original track with something on it to discourage copyright detection. NO OVERRIDE

I wanted to make it feel a little bit more like you were really in the space that the song is trying to manifest. The original drums were the only part of the song that I decided to sample and leave basically untouched. They are the core and driving force of the whole piece. They keep you wanting to move forward through this jungle of sounds that occupy the rest of the space. I feel like the US OST of Sonic CD is woefully underrepresented today. Of course the original JP soundtrack has plenty of hits and a ton of staying power, but Spencer Nilsen's work has always shined in my eyes ever since I first played the game on the Sonic Gems Collection waaaaay back in 2005. I wanted to honor his and his team's work without deriving too much from the original concepts and charm. Think of this as a sort of "Sonic Mania-ified" version of the OG track. Games & Sources This is an arrangement from Sonic CD's US Soundtrack, Palmtree Panic by Spencer Nilsen. Very specifically, I based the song progression off of the version heard in the Sonic The Hedgehog Boom CD from 1994 -

@Chimpazilla @Gario @MindWanderer @Liontamer we got an updated version of this non-project lufia 2 track back in may and i'm sick of it sitting in the submission bin, so i'm doing this =) please update your votes with a quick re-listen of this track. it's changed significantly from what we originally YES'd, so while i don't think it'll get any votes flipped, i'd still prefer to have the updated version listened to before we rubber stamp it. per Docjekyll's submission: "Since my previous submission ~2 years ago, I have been working on improving my mixing skills in particular and I don't believe my previous submission is still a good representation of my best effort. So I'm resubmitting the same remix with generally the same arrangement, but with better mixing, smoother transitions and additional atmospheric elements."

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

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

opens with foley and voiceover elements, As Is Tradition for a VQ track. i don't know where the melodic material happening behind the voiceovers comes from. some more elements come in around 1:50 and there's some keyboard elements that are lacking in velocitization, but there's some interesting textures being used here as more and more orchestral elements come in. there's a transition around 2:40ish with some horns, and they don't sound great - really blatty and far away, i think there's some extra processing on them that's causing them to sound more distant and lacking in attack than you'd expect. there's a hard shift at 3:03 to the organ as a lead instrument. there's a bass with some attack modulation on it, and a few other elements added in like some strings and bells as a percussive element. this instrumentation doesn't blend at all with the prior section, it lacks intensity as compared to the original and what's been brewing in this remix so far, and i honestly am having trouble mapping it to the original as more than just the chord structure if even that. the chords that enter with the vordt theme also feel transformed beyond where their relationship to the original is not apparent. most of these instruments have a lot of bass content as well and they've overlapping a lot (an issue i run into with organ often). this noodles through the chord progression, continues to feel muddy and indirect with motion, and then hits a big section of falling action at 4:56. 5:42 is the Holy Blade section. the representation here again feels like there's no clear direction for a while, with the instrumentation kind of all doing its own thing and not coming together to a cohesive thing until 6:20. i can hear the adaptation of the Holy Blade descending riff here much clearer, which is good. the original's intensity and verve isn't present, which is kind of an interesting albeit confusing correlation against the fairly intense vocal lines and speed increase at the 7 minute mark. the entire section starting around 7:20 is probably the most cohesive section you've got in the entire piece, but i'd say that also it's still rife with similar issues as before, like the big buzzy bass instrument taking up a ton of frequency range and a lead that's hard to hear what's going on, and overall it's wandering instead of feeling like it's got a driving melodic element that's leading it. there's a sudden break and then the end comes out of nowhere. overall i don't care for most of the direction of the work at all. i feel it's way more focused on the voiceover than on the music in the first several minutes and a few significant chunks after that (like between a quarter and a third of the track feels voiceover-driven). separately i feel it wanders throughout without focus on a melodic element or even a timbral element - there's no direction, and so it's hard to keep track of what's going on. the majority of the work, it's not clear where the music is coming from - it's either so heavily transformed or reduced that i can't map it. lastly, in several sections including the organ part at 3:03 and the holy blade section, there's a lot of overlapping elements in similar frequency ranges, so it's hard to understand aurally what's going on where. i'd be remiss to say that i just don't get a lot of the dynamics and 'story' of the work overall. there's some neat building action through the first few minutes, but the release of that energy is...the horn section around 2:40, which doesn't use it at all. then there's another big build into the organ section, and that almost immediately disperses the build into a chordal exploration that i had trouble identifying where it comes from. similarly, the end of this section falls off almost immediately into a big voiceover-focused section that actually has no music playing for several seconds in it. the shape and macro direction of the work is not clear. these are not easy fixes. i think that making the correlations to the originals in the earlier sections will make the volume (and volume) of the voiceovers more palatable, even if i think most of them are gross-sounding (not a horror fan, sorry). i think that really taking a critical eye to the organ section at 3:03 and EQing and/or changing instrumentation and instrument ranges so as to avoid some of the overlapping freqs will make that section easier on the ears. i also think that taking a look at the sections where the references to the original are basically just chord changes (long sections, like the two minutes after the organ comes in, or most of the minute before that) with very modified moving lines above them, and finding ways to tie those clearly and directly to the original will help a lot. lastly, finding ways to more consistently handle the builds and releases of the energy you build up in some of these sections would help immensely. i kept feeling let down when builds and ensemble crescendos didn't go anywhere - it happens four or five times at least throughout the work. it's going to sound like i didn't enjoy much of this at all. to be honest, i didn't! but it's not required for me to enjoy the piece in order to critique the technical and arrangement elements. right now the scope and vision feels too big. i think overall that this needs a lot of transformative work to reign in the wilder bits and focus it more, so as to be more effective at conveying what you're trying to convey. right now it's a wildly imaginative, visionary, probably over-extending attempt. NO

*PROJECT - OCR TIMESHIFT ALBUM* COLLABORATORS: gravitygauntlet - ADDITIONAL LAYERED SYNTHS, DRUMS & COMPOSITIONAL VSTI Rad Decision - ARRANGEMENT TRANSPOSITION TO F#M; ADDITIONAL SPOOKY SFX JSABlixer - ADDITIONAL GAMEBOY TRANSITIONAL SFX . . .Bloodborne Kart, anyone? :D Taking "Ol' Skool" VGM leitmotif into the modern age, this remix of Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 sources is the love-child of my immense passion and intrigue for the SoulsBorne-series of games created by FromSoft, fused with the games of my generation that SoulsBorne may take influence from (i.e. Castlevania). I felt it appropriate for the TimeShift album to give these sources a sort of..."vintage coat of paint", with the delicately curated soundscape and design, to make it feel as if "this is Souls-like, but--" GameBoy Advance or Nintendo 64; and it has felt like such a wonderful way to showcase and marry the concept of time (by honoring both a NEW and an OLD game franchise), and how both have, and still does, shape my being, my pursuits and my life. At 36 years of age (at the time of writing this), I've lived long enough to see the span of video games grow and flourish across *so many* different genres, eras and consoles, and *still* witness and enjoy them to this day. This goes for OverClocked ReMix as well, as both a site and a purveyor of the finest quality VGM remixes--having had built a library of them and skulked around the site for decades at this point, (practically since its inception, back when I was in late-junior high / early-high school!) Being able to meld my adoration for the old and the new within this has been a blessing, an honor and a joy, and I hope others will cast aside their weak flesh and join us Beasts of the Old Blood for the danse macabre of merriment on this dark-lit moon night. <3 This song is not only in dedication to OCRemix's 25th Anniversary celebration, but to...someone special and personal, who is extremely and very dear to me. . . He got me into the SoulsBorne series years ago, we've shared lots of fun times in general together since meeting on Final Fantasy XIV and sharing in our mutual love of both franchises, and hopefully many more to come. Ten plus years knowing him, and so many more of me knowing about OCRemix. I am so thankful to have become a part of this community and the VGM-sphere as a whole. This is my gift to everyone in it, however-- -- Kaz, this one's for you, with my deepest, heartfelt love and respect. Cheers everybody, enjoy, and a big thank you to all who listen to this song now and forevermore. Big hugs and shout-out to EVERYONE as well who were involved in the TimeShift project Discord, collaborated with me on this, or just lent ears for feedback and helped out. Y'all are the true all-stars and champions here. Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart. # SUMMARY OF THE REMIX: A hauntingly 'jovial' church ceremony and dance -- this remix has seemingly turned from an overtly horror-trope-y, slow death requiem march/choral mass to a more German classical opera/French Baroque, stately Castlevania 64-style arrangement, by changing it from the Dm -> Bm of the original main source (Ludwig's boss themes) into F#m. My hope is the wonderful mixture of realistic cinematic instrumentation and percussion as the bedrock / foundation, with the very modern Hip-Hop / R&B spin and structure on a chiptune platter of cherries on top are both saucy and unique for the sources used. One other note--besides SFX and atmospheres used, and the VO, *everything presented here* in the remix arrangement was hand-written by me via MIDI piano roll. Not a SINGLE line of drums or beat or instrumentation is a loop of some kind unless I made it from scratch. :) This will also be my first mix in actually writing CCs on MIDI lines for orchestral dynamics and expression. :D So, indeed, onwards and upwards. <3 A big thank you to those in the Discord chat who helped me to learn how to do it. REMIX INFLUENCES & INSPIRATIONS: 1980s Slasher Flicks (Halloween & Nightmare on Elm Street, specifically--you can hear it in the Intro's keyboards/piano, chiptune and staccato/spiccato strings hitting the fast bouncy plucks as countermelodies/counterharmonies to the mains @ 2:19) Phantom of the Opera (e.g. the pipe organs) Hammer Horror (Dracula, specifically--lines and FX of VO utilizes Francis Ford Coppola's 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' [1992] dialogue and wolf howls @ 5:21) Castlevania (N64/GBA-era: examples - 1, 2, 3, 4) Goosebumps / Are You Afraid of the Dark? (90s references & vibes) Old 1930s-50s radio plays, cinematics and horror/sci-fi dramas (e.g. War of the Worlds, hence the voice acting and VO FX) Black Violin # SOURCES USED AND THEIR PARTS (EVERY SOURCE TRANSPOSED FROM Dm/Bm TO F#m, BY COURTESY AND HELP OF RAD DECISION): Main Source - Ludwig - Accursed & Holy Blade: [P1] 00:00 - 04:18 / [Transition & Interlude for Boss Cutscene] 03:03 - 04:18 = Ludwig the Accursed; [P2] 04:19 - End = Ludwig the Holy Blade Father Gascoigne Boss Theme (utilizing the horn and bass stabs that start around 00:20) Cleric Beast / Vicar Amelia Boss Theme (utilizing the choir lines starting @ 00:15) Vordt of the Boreal Valley Boss Theme (utilizing the choir lines starting @ 01:48) SOURCE & REFERENCE BREAKDOWN: 00:00 - 02:42 = Modified / expanded version of Ludwig the Accursed's first few bars of its melody line and chords, stretched to become the intro and building operatic landscape for the piece 01:24 - 02:05 = FATHER GASCOIGNE bass stabs w/ Ludwig solo violin & chiptune melody 02:19 - 02:42 = repeated pulsing arp piano & string hits [spicc & stacc] are reminiscent of and take inspiration directly from the theme of the movie Halloween; the sound palette of the keyboard synth hits & chiptune plink-plonk are a reflection of the same motif used in the original Nightmare on Elm Street theme 02:32 - 03:03 = FATHER GASCOIGNE rising horn section present as a transition assist 03:04 - 05:41 = LUDWIG THE ACCURSED, in full 03:52 - 04:34 = VORDT OF THE BOREAL VALLEY choir present (from Phase 2 of his original boss fight source); starts out being heard by the soft choir synth growing louder and louder, and then becomes the organs, timpani & percs (marimbas, xylophones & hand bell hits) as part of the larger swelling, ebb and flow orchestra set; other instruments, tubular bells and chimes continue the remainder of LUDWIG THE ACCURSED up until the source's transitional break 04:56 - 05:42 = LUDWIG'S cutscene / transition Interlude 05:24 - 05:42 = CLERIC BEAST choir present; crescendos in-behind the Dracula lines, and the rising tension, chattering strings as part of the LUDWIG transition into Phase 2, HOLY BLADE 05:42 - END = LUDWIG THE HOLY BLADE, in full [switches up to a brief +3 semitones up / Minor Key Change @ 08:33-34 - 08:48] 07:36 - 08:05 & 08:12 - 08:52 = CLERIC BEAST choir chords return as the trancey, pulsating, zappy synth stings, which are paired with the synth choirs as part of the finale ---- * NOTE -- ALL VOs [except the Dracula VA insert] COME FROM BLOODBORNE AND ITS DLC, THE OLD HUNTERS, BY THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERS - Micolash--Host of the Nightmare, Vicar Amelia, Father Gascoigne the Hunter and Ludwig the Accursed. ** Instrumentals were layered with gravity's own VSTi renders, playing similar MIDI content; Rad Decision assisted with adding ghostly, haunting winds and howls, as well as key transposition duties; you can hear JSA's contributions towards the end of the remix, where underneath Ludwig's dialogue are GameBoy noise/static sweeps and crunch paired with the scary, rising strings and other accompaniment as part of the transition to a faster BPM. Games & Sources BLOODBORNE - THE OLD HUNTERS Original Soundtrack; Tracks 4 & 5 - Ludwig, The Holy Blade & Ludwig, The Accursed; Artist(s): SIE Sound Team / Ryan Amon, Tsukasa Saitoh, Michael Wandmacher, Yuka Kitamura, Cris Velasco & Nobuyoshi Suzuki; Release Date: 2015; Label: Sony / Bandai Namco BLOODBORNE Original Soundtrack; Track 4 - The Hunter [Father Gascoigne] & Track 5 - Cleric Beast [Vicar Amelia]; Artist(s): SIE Sound Team / Ryan Amon, Tsukasa Saitoh, Michael Wandmacher, Yuka Kitamura, Cris Velasco & Nobuyoshi Suzuki; Release Date: 2015; Label: Sony / Bandai Namco DARK SOULS 3 Original Soundtrack; Track 6 - Vordt of the Boreal Valley; Artist(s): Nobuyoshi Suzuki and Yuka Kitamura; Release Date: 2016; Label: Sony / Bandai Namco

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

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

wall of sound to start. big, intense opening focusing on the rising chord pattern right off the bat. the drums sound pretty weak through all of this. 0:32's use of the arpeggio element was a nice idea. melody hits at 0:47 and is in half-time, which is an idea i like given how great the melody is - lets us hear it more! there's loads of stuff going on in the background and in the drums through this whole first representation of the melody. following section with the rising arpeggiated element is a clever analogy for the track's title and topic. 2:32 is a big shift in feel. this might have been an opportunity to let the track breathe without the electric as the lead for a bit, but i like the harmonics and spacier feel in this section. there's a slam transition at 3:24 and it's appropriately intense as it builds back to another representation of the melody at 4:10. this trucks through some variations on the melodic material (i liked the hard drop at 5:02) for a bit before transitioning into outro material. one more ascent to the peak of the arpeggio - and then there's a fadeout? or something? but it still ends, so the fadeout is kind of confusing. this is a super fun track to listen to! i really appreciate your willingness to get into the melody and mix it up instead of just playing it through. for such a long track, you keep the feel pretty similar throughout but it doesn't ever get boring or tiresome. that's a challenge and you did a great job with it. one of the things i wanted to go through and check was source usage, since we only get the melody a few times in six minutes, but the original's rising action and arpeggio elements are represented throughout and are easily able to be mapped, so i've got no concern about source usage. my main concern here (outside of the fake fadeout ending - you don't need a fade there at all!) is that the mixing is kind of messy. there's a ton of sub-40hz content, and to my ears the rhythm guitar is crushing the drums and bass quite a bit. the kick is very clicky, which helps the beater tone to cut through, but it doesn't have much beef to it, and the rest of the drums sound pretty weak. before this passed, i'd want to get those drums taken care of so they don't sound so anemic. some more attention to some very intentional eq on the hats and snare especially should help, as well as being more careful with what's on the low end of your rhythm guitar and bass instrument, should help out a ton with giving the drums room to do their thing. i love this track! don't let it disappear, there's definitely a place on this site for this. NO

huge, aggressive opening, with some of the original arp in the background behind some very loud guitar chugs. kick doesn't have a ton of bass content (the toms might have more) but i really like the tone of the toms and snare. the chugs sound a little sparse during the verse when they're under the lead guitar, and i don't hear the bass much at all in the opening sections. 0:49 it opens up a lot and there's a ton more backing elements and harmonic parts. it's just so loud that it's hard to hear most of them - all i can hear is the kick and the chugs/rhythm guitars most of the time. 1:20's a copy of the opening section for a bit, and then we get into another melodic section. at this point the chugs are getting tiresome since we've been hearing them so much and they aren't changing much at all. the leads are panned very wide as well which makes it hard to put them together. 2:25 the rhythm guitars finally change it up and we get some double-time work in the drums which is nice before a big break at 2:40. there's some other sfx and leads in here which is a nice change after so much hearing the same stuff. we get one more blow through the chorus at 3:12 and then it's done. there's even less than no ending - there's a few more chugs, and the synth keeps playing until the pattern ends. truly feels incomplete. this is a neat idea initially, but the chugs especially become tiresome very quickly. i like the exploration of some of the weirder elements of the original in the middle third of the piece, but there's simultaneously too much going on for the middle minute or so while also not having enough energy to drive it forward - it just gets tiresome in there. and then the ending doesn't exist at all. separately, the kick and guitars (mostly rhythm) are just so loud that you can't hear the bass, the backing synth elements, or any nuance in the leads. backing them down to make a more balanced soundscape i think would help a ton, and panning the split leads when they occur back more to the middle so they're not so far apart would help a ton to make it more cohesive in those sections. i think this has a ton of potential to be really fun. fixing some of the mixing issues and utilizing less repetition in your rhythmic elements to allow for a track with more dynamic movement so as to avoid the middle third feeling dead would be a huge positive, as would adding a real ending. NO

opens with a pretty filtered feel to a shakuhachi and some strings, but it makes more sense when the guitars come in soon after. guitars and drums are huge volume-wise, but the strings fill in a bit and the lead is indeed a neat crunchy feel. the drums mostly are on autopilot outside of a few fills. there's some ensemble breaks for emphasis and then we're into some more copied elements, as larry calls out. i liked the half-time section at the end as a way to mix it up and help let down some of the intensity. i agree there is too much copy/paste. i'll also note that the guitars and drums are like twice as loud as they need to be to still be punchy - as it is, that's all i can hear most of the time. i think this is maybe 90s of solid material here that could easily be a three-minute banger with some more work to diversify and avoid repetition. as it is, there's too much repeated material right now. NO

this is pretty similar initially but spreads out a lot more as the track goes on. there's less a focus on orchestrated silliness in the background and more on a tighter band sound, as expected given the folks contributing. track starts to drag a bit around 2:50 since it's just powering through track callouts for a while - there's no real direction for a bit there until the vocalists come back in, and then it's a pretty abrupt transition. there's some really fun vocal processing work around the 4:50-5:00 mark, that was a nice way to mix it up. the meat boy vocal parts are a bit high to my ears - having to switch to falsetto at the top really kills the line unfortunately. this track isn't quite as over-long as the original (imo that was a 3 minute song and took 5:30 to be done). it's still a long song with a lot going on, and some of it probably should have been cut down to focus it more. overall, this track is way, way loud. the limiter's going nuts throughout the band sections, complete with a bunch of loud bursts in the master like at 0:24. audacity reports constant clipping throughout - i don't hear it, but i wonder how youtube's going to like it. the elephant in the room is if this is different enough from the original remix to constitute a new work. i think that there's enough here to do that, if we apply the same criteria to this remix vs. the ocr as we do remix vs. original. there's a lot of new lines, there's some restructuring, there's a lot of altered elements and added content. so while i think the song's more uneven than i'd expect given the arranger, and the mastering's not perfect, and the performances aren't perfect, i still think this is a banger and really fun to listen to. YES edit 11/19: yeah, i used the wrong terms - what i'm hearing is the kick causing pumping. separately, i listened to it again after a few months away and after the other votes went the other way. i think i'm in agreement the mix feels bland in a lot of places and that it needs another eq pass - i over-focused on arrangement the first time around, and there's not really any issues there. i think the snare in particular feels pretty blah as does the claps. i still love the arrangement (although it's probably too long), but as it is i think it'd be a "what could this have been" if we posted it. so ima change my vote and call it done. NO

little different style right off the bat! opens with a filtered bass synth and a very resonant lead. most of the synths are in the same range and it's dense. kick and snare come in at 0:16. there doesn't sound like there's any sidechaining so the kick sounds pretty weak. this opens up a bunch at 0:32 and you can hear some fun countermelodic elements, and a bitcrushing fill. it hits its stride at 0:49 finally and it's a nice groove, the kick just has no beef at all. i like some of the added flourishes to the melody line through here. there's a break at 1:20. this might have been a chance to change up the lead a little. there's a hard cut into a filtered beat and bass right after it - this was a little sudden and took a second to get the hang of what was going on. this transitions into a bridge section that's more transitional until some repeated material from 0:49. another transition with bitcrushing into the final chorus at 2:23. there's some bass-synth focused outro, and it's done. overall i think this is a really fun arrangement! you take an original with a lot of dynamic movement and manage to represent that well in this genre. there are a few technical issues that are a big deal - the kick having no guts throughout is a really big one. layering in some samples with more sub content, sidechaining the bass and backing pads so that the kick can speak through the mix a bit, and making sure you're not scooping the bass out of the EQs so high (looks like the peak's in the 75hz range, i'd expect it to be half that / an octave lower) would help a lot. separately i was getting pretty tired of the same synths by the end of the track. there's a lot of repeated elements in here (like how you reused the opening synth riffs several times) - by changing up your leads just like you would change up what instrument in the orchestra's carrying the melody, you add engagement and interest to your listener. you have several breaks at good times in the track, so maybe consider mixing up your leads in those transitional points. NO

opens with some percussive elements (bit of machine gun in there), and some lovely swells in the strings. this section feels a touch compressed whenever the orchestral percussion hit. oboe isn't particularly realistic (reminds me of the FFXII soundtrack actually) but i like what it's saying. good use of a complex scale for some of the runs. the chromatic elements at 1:32-1:34 aren't quite there. this progresses through some more oboe noodles until we get to a break at 2:13 when the voice comes in. i think the voice part is a touch loud as it comes in - being farther in the distance i think would fit the very spare backing elements better. i like the processing on the voice however, it fits into the texture well. the oboe's a bit more exposed here as well. when the octaves come in at 3:32 it's clear that it's been heavily pitch-adjusted - make sure when you do pitch adjustment you don't take out the natural drift in your voice, or it'll sound robotic. through 3:45 we start to build back to an orchestral setting. there's some repeated elements that have showed up a lot by this point (the descending tom fill, the hand percussion loop), so the small changes you've made here are really nice. i think this section really needs a lot more to distinguish it from the first two minutes - the bass clarinet lead section is nice, but overall it feels very much like the opening section where it's string pads and an oboe noodling on top. it's also pretty hard to hear what's going on in those melodic elements in some places. more dynamic backing elements, an updated hand percussion loop, more rhythmic elements in the background - this would all help a lot to keep it moving. the track just ends after the source melody is over. there's a final note and that's it. some prep and outro after nearly six minutes of music would make a lot of sense there. i think that there's some really neat ideas here. this is definitely an interesting reimagining of a classic tune and showcases some great concept work. i think there's some execution elements that need to be corrected before it's ready for primetime. the middle third drags and needs some balancing, and the last third needs something to give it more verve. NO

welcome back! agree that there's a hard hole between about 150hz and about 275hz, which is part of why the track feels a bit scooped. there's not much past like 1khz either, which is why it's a little dead. separately there's also some elements right away that are hard panned all the way left and right (the early keys) whereas other elements are full-center (drums), which makes some things sound a bit weird on headphones but wouldn't be noticeable on speakers. i need to stress that this sounds so much better than it did last time though. it's like they're completely different tracks. there's a big break at 0:57 which is well-timed, and then a bit of building action that goes longer than i initially expect and is more transitional into the battle theme elements. this noodles a bit before we get back to the A theme and content. the drums are a little contrived here. this trucks through the melodic content one more time before it hits the outro at 2:50, and then it's done. i think this is almost there! you're to the part now where you don't need to make significant changes, but the little things you tweak here and there will result in a vastly improved product. if you filled back in that hold around 200hz that i mentioned before, open up the top of your EQs a touch to allow some >1khz content (especially from your hats), and reigned in some of the stereo separation of your keys, i think that helps a lot. a better transition at 2:02 would help too. lastly, the section from about 1:14 through about 1:50 drags quite a bit. finding a way to instill rhythm and forward focus without losing the vibe there would be a huge help to the middle third of the piece. you're in the home stretch! what a ride so far. honestly this is really close as it is. NO

i will not be left off a yes vote! opening section takes a minute to get going, but i like the glass-esque build and intense focus. there's a (probably too long) sfx break to the melodic content which comes in at 1:20. the melodic is initially very spare, but i get that it fleshes out over time and i think it's a fun build since it's similar to the game's story. we get a big hit of everything at 1:55 and it gets trucking along nicely at that point. the change at 3:22 is a fun one - again, very steve reich/terry riley phase experimental. there's another sfx break and the b theme comes in with such a different vibe. really neat idea here too. i actually didn't like the subsequent section with how full it was - i think overall the best parts of the song to me were the ones that were more spare in their approach. 5:37 feels great for example. i'll say though that finally coming back to the a theme at 5:52 really felt great. around here i noticed that the snare and fills before were really loud and that was a little much to my ears. there's an outro section that's less naturally from an instrumentation standpoint, and then it's done. there's a few seconds of silence at the end that does a great job of actually ending the piece. there's a lot here to like. CoT is such an overdone track (i should know, i have one on the panel right now too!) that this is kind of surprising how far afield it's able to travel. i appreciate the breadth of the arrangement and how much you do to reinforce the natural beauty of the arpeggio that ties it all together. great work. YES

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

last version all six previous versions Tried the file upload, it failed. I'm baaaack, lol. I read all of the advice given, and watched the videos suggested...and as a "treat" of sorts, I did not allow myself to listen to my last submission until I thought this one was ready to submit. After all of the advice followed....wow, I can hear the issues much more clearly in that previous version. As always, I give so much thanks for the time given for consideration and the critiques given, much appreciated! I also appreciate the feedback that has been given in the WIP forum:) Originals Games & Sources Game is Dragon Warrior 4, and this is from chapter 4, Mara and Nara, the sisters of Monbaraba. The music is mainly the walkabout theme, with a section that represents the battle theme included. I've always enjoyed the original 8 bit version more than the successors....with the exception of this ReMix;) I jest. Tried the file upload, it failed. Link given in space provided, and also here.

This was the first mix I started for TimeShift, and it's far and away the most fitting for the album. I took direct inspiration from the name of the album, particularly with treatment of the source's main arpeggio. There's multiple portions devoted to layers and layers of the arpeggio offset from each other, as if they're each shifting through time. Initially, there were sections of complete silence, but after getting some feedback, I decided to add some effects there and boost my nostalgia points :3. Shoutouts to Gravitygauntlet for mixing this track, he really brought the track to the next level. Enjoy! Games & Sources Chrono Trigger - Corridors of Time - Yasunori Mitsuda

((PART OF TIMESHIFT, PRIORITY REQUESTED PLEASE FOR PROJECT RELEASE DEC-11-2024)) I was inspired by the OCR albums of yore where the director also made a contribution to the tracklist, so it seemed appropriate that I, too, do a "captain's knock". I thought through what VGM of the last 25 years has influenced me, and it quickly became apparent that I should do the game that's ingrained in my soul. SimCity 4 has to be the sole game that I've played and metagamed the most out of any. Terrain is, undoubtedly, my favorite source from the soundtrack. The Humble Brothers created a progressive symphotronica that builds through the Locrian and Lydian modes, really pushing the modes' inherent tension, before releasing it all with a beautiful, lilting Ionian major melody played on a fiddle, and then returning from whence it came. Its percussion lines are incredibly detailed and layered. This was my natural choice; but how could I work out such a daunting source? I spent ages trying to figure out its melodic and rhythmic structure, bashing notes out on my piano until I located them. The harmony was trickier to work out, but once I discovered I could make stems in FL Studio, the way was clear: I had solved a 20-year-old puzzle I'd had (I may have even cried a little). Given Terrain's sheer majesty, there was simply no way that I could "elevate" the source, so I figured the best I could do was to pay tribute to it with my own symphotronica: take its structural elements and rework them, make references to its many highlight moments of its percussion line, and give it all a theme to work around. Jacaranda Dreams is so-called because the main city of the main region I have played in the game is called "Jacaranda". Moreover the name is an entendre: SimCity is about town planning, it led me to pursue studies of it at a university level, and the university I attended is well known for its jacaranda trees. Sadly, for various reasons, my university studies were not to bear fruit. It is from this chapter of my life that I drew the piece's theme: hope, hope lost, and new hope. I applied these three moods to Terrain, and changed its ABCBA structure to BAC — my TimeShift, if you will. The first part of the ReMix takes the suspended chords of Terrain's Lydian sections and makes them its running motif. To add variation to this section, and as a further nod to the game, I took one of the ostinatos from Jerry Martin's By the Bay, also from SimCity 4. I also took its choice of reeds to be my lead instrument: oboe. After a collection of original oboe melodies (like various attempts at getting my studies to work), the ReMix moves to the dark Locrian section. The original has a call-and-response between an electric guitar sample and a female voice, so I swapped the two and exchanged the guitar for the oboe. The lyrics are in Latin, partly as a nod to Simlish, but also thanks to my upbringing in a church choir it felt like a natural choice for the limited notes available. I panned my voice through the opening, painting with the phrase "Ubi est spes?" ("Where is hope?") like searching for it. I also emulated that grating guitar sample with my vowel changes. I've also loved distant lo-fi vocals, so that had to be done too. With the realisation, "Abeam" ("I should leave"), with the lo-fi getting dropped, the ReMix then finally reaches that beautiful Ionian melody (after a delayed build-up: I expect fans of the original will be waiting to hear that line, too). I celebrate that melody with the addition of some countermelodies, percussion references, and giving the melody to a bass clarinet at the climax for the oboe to then counter. This last section draws some inspiration (but no material) from Jerry Martin's Magic City from SimCity 3000. There's another layer to the tribute here, that to OverClocked ReMix. The kick drum that forms the booming bass fundamental is none other than zircon's from ISW's Groove Bias. And melodically...if you know, you know. ;3 90% of the samples are from Spitfire Labs, either directly or through its BBC Symphony Orchestra samples, with the bass clarinet coming from the Alpine Project. The only things I had to pay for were FL Studio 21 and Kontakt 7; the samples themselves were free. It was put together with a pencil and eraser on score to identify the original's ideas before being expanded in FL Studio. Thanks must go to my fellow artists on the project for giving me feedback all the way from the first eight-bar sketch of the string ensemble to the final version, and especially to those who've heard it in the various Office Hours sessions, particularly Seph, Josh, Hemo, Emunator, prophetik, VQ and Adrian for their ideas and criticism. This is my first time arranging with a full-blown proper DAW with samples rather than digital music paper and manually typing in MIDI values, and their guidance has been priceless. Since the very years this ReMix talks about I wanted to contribute something musically to OCR, and now I have been given the chance. I hope you enjoy. ((LYRICS: LATIN Ubi est spes? Ubi est spes? Ubi est spes? Hic non est. Hic non est. Abeam. Abeam. Abeam! ENGLISH Where is hope? Where is hope? Where is hope? It is not here. It is not here. I should leave. I should leave. I should leave! )) ((This part is for Larry's stopwatch. "Source" refers to Terrain, "Secondary" refers to By the Bay: ReMix: 0:00 - 0:06 -> Source: 5:22 - 5:36 ReMix: 0:07 - 1:47 -> Source: 2:08 - 2:46 (original material in oboe line) ReMix: 0:57 - 2:00 -> Secondary: 0:13 - 0:26 prominent, but present through the rest of By the Bay (xylophone, modified to fit harmonically) ReMix: 1:47 - 2:22 -> Source: 4:14 - 4:48 ReMix: 2:12 - 3:16 -> Source: 0:00 - 1:05 ReMix: 3:16 - 3:35 -> Source: 0:59 - 1:05 ReMix: 3:35 - 3:59 -> Source: 2:47 - 2:59 ReMix: 4:00 - 5:28 -> Source: 3:00 - 3:49 (original countermelodies, expanded harmony) ReMix: 5:29 - 5:49 -> Source: 3:50 - 4:01 )) Games & Sources SimCity 4 - Terrain (by The Humble Brothers [Ken "hiwatt" Marshall, Traz Damji]): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCfimZEArAQ SimCity 4 - By the Bay (by Jerry Martin): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6l1CsqZtnk4 Other soundtrack composers for database completeness: Anna Karney, Bob Marshall, Kent Jolly, Kirk Casey, Marc Russo, Michael Land, Robi Kauker, Walt Szalva

needs a new name if it passes Artist Name: AverageImposter I've been listening to many different styles of metal all my life, and I finally felt proficient enough at guitar to arrange something for one of my favorite games of all time. It took 3 years but we got there! Celeste is such a beautiful game that everyone should try. One of, if not, THE best platformer ever created. Also, speedrunning it is so much fun. Also highly recommend lol (not biased at all surely) Games & Sources Reach for the Summit is the theme to Chapter 7 in the indie platformer "Celeste". It was originally composed by Lena Raine. Everything was recorded, produced, and mastered by me. I used a sample library for the drums only. Original:

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