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prophetik music

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Everything posted by prophetik music

  1. this will need a new name if it passes, as we don't allow remix names that are just the name of the original track. also, given that we don't allow any sampled audio regardless of source from square enix owned games (square enix currently owns the rights to chrono trigger) means that this is a no-go with the given samples. i'll still review it, but we can't post it even if it passes in its current state. opening has some sfx (naughty naughty!) alongside a very thin, airy pad playing the SotF arpeggio. i like the transitional effect into 0:26. the lead here is nice as well, and the beat is appropriately chill. there's a significant amount of pumping (i don't think it's sidechain unless everything except the kick is sidechained) which is notable and doesn't sound great. there's a break that features the Schala arpeggio (and eventually the melodic material when the beat comes back in). there's not much going on in this section that's not from the original track, but some brass stabs come in near the end which keeps it from being a palette swap from the original. it goes through the Schala arpeggio a bit before ending without an ending. i think this would be fairly close if i had to vote on it fo rillz, given the pumping in the limiter and the lack of original content in the second half. short tracks are hard to have enough transformative arrangement to really get themselves over the bar without everything firing on all cylinders. that said, the inclusion of sampled effects makes this a moot point. they'd have to be changed before i could vote in earnest. NO
  2. This remix simply titled "Secret of the Forest" is a mashup of Secret of the Forest and Schala's theme from Chrono Trigger! I had a lot of fun making this one and decided to go with a trap/wave style for the remix. Hope you like it ~ This remix was released on my EP "Whisper Tree" in 2020: Games & Sources The intro of this song also samples sounds from the game files including menu buttons, various in-game fx and the opening clock ticking sound!
  3. this appears to be fifteen and a half minutes of the original audio from the games stitched together. unfortunately this isn't what we host at this website - we host arrangements of the original material, not clips of the originals mashed up. take a look at section 4.2 of the submission standards to see what kind of material we generally accept. NO
  4. neat original! i didn't vote on the first decision. comments about the soundscape and verb application above apply to me too. percussion across the board doesn't sound like it's in the same world as the synths but the toms are particularly dry. the rest of the verb is like 10x longer than i'd expect too, the tail's super long - i actually think this is more the problem than the percs, since in a vacuum later the percs do have some room tone. the chords that come in at 1:08 are neat, but i wish they'd come in earlier. the lead at 1:22 has such a long tail that it takes a while to fade, and it's moving stepwise in Gm. that wouldn't be too big a deal except the third chord in the short background chorded instrument is a flatted II chord, and so at 1:24 it puts an Ab major chord under an A in the lead line. it's definitely a bit crunchy but wasn't a super big deal to me since the chorded element is so short. the percussion here and the bass writing is actually pretty fun, and i like the call and response through this section. it feels like there isn't quite enough there though - another instrument is needed somewhere where it won't compete with what's happening. this repeats over a few times and then we get a breakdown at 2:17. this was needed by here so it's well-timed. the same issue that was described above happens at 2:30 except this time it's the bass and the lead, and this is more noticeable since the soundscape is emptier. the same riff in the lead and the same lead riff are used here repeatedly, and it's not until almost 3:15 that we get anything new. this is a perfect section to really change up the vibe or instrumentation, coming out of the break, and staying the same is tiring from an auditory perspective. the track felt like it was approaching the end after 3:45 and then it goes for another minute doing the same thing, no solo or anything to mix it up. this is too much repetition - we're talking five minutes of bread and only three minutes of butter. trimming this back a lot would help a ton. so this is a very long rubber stamp. consider changing up the notes that conflict, take some more time to trim back the arrangement to just be the best parts and not also a ton of fat along the edges, flesh out the bass and percs writing for later in the track, and consider how you can continue to iterate what the song's saying throughout so it's not so repetitive. also consider toning back the synth reverb's tail and normalize the soundscape a bit so that it's not so diverse. NO
  5. agree with Flex. this isn't "a little repetitive", it's half a track. if anything, it being jordan is why i gave it a ? at first when he resubbed the second version.
  6. ambient opening. first big pile of crunch at 0:25 is nice and it continues to creak in and out for a while. there's some plucks that sound like the intro arp in the original around 0:42. the extreme clipping is making my eyes twitch - there are ways to get distorted and beat-up textures without just cranking it past the 0.0 mark. there's a beat that comes in around 1:31, alongside some other percs. there's a melodic element that comes in at 1:47. i like the distorted tone on it, but don't like how blown out this area is as it loses a lot of depth of tone. there's a lot of low mid content below maybe 200hz that's probably unneeded and is causing it to be really cluttered. i agree with chimpa that this section is slow-burn but not in a good way - since there's zero dynamics possible with the overblown backing elements, there needs to be either melodic or rhythmic elements to keep interest. there's little to no rhythmic elements through the entire song that aren't repeated for the entire breadth of the track, and there's little melodic elements that aren't present in the original. there's some piano that comes in around 2:55, and then some sustains and sfx to finish it for the last 40 seconds or so. a gritty, lo-res texture works very well for this original. ultimately, though, this is a pretty boring remix. the slow tempo is a good choice imo but the lack of dynamics (or really even contrast), interesting rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic elements, and even basic elements of mastering really shoot this one down. there's simply not enough to hold interest for 4+ minutes, and what's there for those four minutes is gritty in a bad way and so blown out that you can't actually hear what's going on most of the time. to be clear: i'd love for a heavy, slow-burn industrial mix of this track, as i think it fits perfectly. just turning up all your mastering channels to +6db isn't how to do that though. it's hard to make something sound dirty and covered in rust, and i think this is what you were going for - it just needs more attention to mastering to make those channels sound like that without just cranking them up so the master clips. NO
  7. what a dope original! never heard it and it's awesome. starts out with some pretty static tones, but the beat comes in at 0:11. initial writing is pretty faithful to the original. the drums aren't quite what i expected given the original sound concept. the bass is pretty active and the lead is very basic initially. there's a recap at 1:06 and some repeated material (everything from there to 1:24 outside of adding the ascending arp flourishes in a few places). the following section is also very similar to the original outside of a few added flourishes. there's another repeat at 2:00 and then it repeats the opening section and fades out. i like the concept here! i think there's a bit too much repetition for a piece that's only 2:10. i think the style survives the genre adaptation pretty well, though, so that's fun! i think there just needs to be more arrangement here - less ANARCHY TAKAPON and more Nuac. i'd also like to hear the drum mixing bring the drums out, assuming you're willing to use modern mastering tools and you aren't explicitly going for a GB-realistic sound. NO
  8. starts out with some very ambient hits at range, and slowly starts to build the descending motif from the original. there's a lot of orchestral elements being used, which is nice. i'll note that there's a lot of sustained chords and that's not great orchestral arranging. it's not common that the entire brass section will play block chords. more movement in here would be a goal. there's a big hit at 1:16 with some guitars and orchestral taikos, and now some choir. there's a lot of audible clipping in here. this is where all those block chords become a problem - they're just clogging up the mid range so you can't put other stuff in here. there's also what sounds like mostly copy/paste for each section with one more thing added on top each time. for example the same choir scoring and presentation is used over and over - this is noticeable and becomes irritating pretty early on. at the 3:00 mark there's some slick soloing going but i can't hear anything. everything needs to be turned down by, like, half, and then use a compression and limiting chain to dress it up rather than relying on raw volume to make stuff sound powerful. by about 3:45 i can no longer hear any backing elements. it's just the bass, the taikos, and the lead solo instruments. everything else is just a mash. i can 100% get the idea of having lots of neat ideas and wanting to layer them on top of one another. i tend to be a very additive composer myself. however, after a certain point, there's just too much going on and it all loses impact as a result. that's what you've got going on most of this. if you removed half - literally half - of the compositional elements you've got going on here, i think you'd have a far more impactful (and easier to mix/master) track. i think there's a ton of great stuff here. it's just inaudible and everything's stepping on everything else's toes. trim it way back, reduce the volume a ton, remove all the sustained layering, and see what you get on the other side as a result. if you don't believe me about the clipping, this is by far the most clipping instances i've ever seen in a submission in the panel: NO
  9. yeah, opening is a direct sample with some sfx. 0:19 brings in a trap style beat and bass, with the original melodic material over top in a mostly unaltered state to my ears. i like the bassline, especially at the bridge section. the hats get a little weird around 0:45 - sounds like there's a shaker and a hat in there in the same range. solo sounds good over the top but it's drowned by the backing instrumentation most of the time. was that liquid instruments used to do the solo? there's an odd sustained organ tone at the end, some more sampled material for a few seconds, and then it's done. this needs more arrangement unfortunately. it's already very short - it's pretty hard to pass the arrangement guidelines with a track that's under two minutes, and this has a solo for half the song - and there's not a lot to differentiate it from the original already. separately, using sampled audio in general is a nono, even more when it's 15% of the track (a few seconds is one thing, but this is a measurable percentage). lastly, from a mixing perspective, your elements are mostly all over the place. there's no intentionality that i can hear around what instruments are louder than others at different points in the song. i'd highly recommend revisiting each element and ensuring that it's placed appropriately in the soundscape rather than leaving them all at the same mixer volume setting the entire track. NO
  10. the initial sound quality is an instant no regardless of arrangement elements, so let's address that first. the track is super blown out - there's no reason for orchestral samples to be so massively sausage-ized on the waveform. all of these instruments need to be turned down by half if not more, and i'd recommend turning off your limiter and compression chain before doing initial mixing to ensure that you're not compensating for blowing the ends off of the main with your inputs. once you've got that covered, then you can slowly add back in the mastering chain to top it off. from an arrangement perspective, i think the initial concept is interesting. you've got a broader, more interesting sound palette, but it quickly grows stale as the only change is the addition of the synth lead eventually. i'd recommend either leaning more into the orchestral element and doing more part-writing (so it's not just lead, stabs, timpani, and string pad) on individual instruments, or else lead into the synthy element where that kind of sustained pad works well and flex some creative sound design muscles. either way, this is too simple of an arrangement right now, and larry's right about the loop and ending cutoff. we need more transformative arrangement to be something that can sit on the site. NO
  11. yeah unfortunately this is essentially a cover using chiptunes. we require transformative arrangement here at ocremix - that is, sound swaps aren't enough. in a demake like this, i'd expect to hear updated rhythmic elements, new chords, a more personalized instance of the melodic line, changed time signatures, etc. what's here right now is mostly concernedape's work, and it's just being played by new instruments. that's fine with youtube and some other services but it's not what we do here. i love the idea though! i'm a huge fan of demakes. that track is a good example of the type of arrangement we look for here, and emulating (no pun intended) ben's expansion of the original theme would be a great way to proceed here. NO
  12. would need a real title if it passed. this is a pretty basic original - just the bass riff and the whistle synth - so i'd need to see some pretty transformative elements to make this pass the bar. to my ears, there isn't much arrangement here at all - this sounds essentially like you've taken the existing parts (even some of the drum lines) and put better sounds on them. i think the better sounds sound better! but there's nowhere near the transformative arrangement we require as part of 4.2 in the submission standards. NO
  13. the waveform diff overall on this one is drastic. also LT this wasn't samples from the original, it's just a very similar synth that was used. starts out with some ambience (assuming this is the sampled element?) and some accelerating piano over time. the piano sounds intentionally filtered. the arp's in the piano, and the lead is a similar tone to the original. the kick starts as a more muted version and then has another kick with more beater added in later. the lead is 1:1 from the original. when the rest of the beat comes in at 1:18, it sounds to me like the track is currently the ongoing ambience, the beat, piano playing some chords and the arp, and the lead. that's pretty sparse compared to the complexity of the original. there's a break at 2:12 with no kick for a bit, but it's back within 15 seconds and we get the B theme for a bit. there's a stutter synth here that i didn't notice before, and that's a nice change. at 2:55 the beat's done for the piece (another 1.5 minutes!). the lead synth appears to truck through the rest of the melodic material in order with the piano under it, and then finish on some more ambient swells. from an arrangement perspective, i like the idea of giving the main body of the melody some more rhythm in the form of percussion. beyond that, there's not much here that isn't lena raine. we need more arrangement than this. section 4.2 in our standards talks about significant arrangement - another word that's used a lot is transformative. this doesn't have that, so it's a nonstarter right there. frim a mixing perspective, the kick is wildly louder than anything else in the track, it's not even close. the spectrum analysis shows a solid wall from 35-60hz, no cutoff below that and nothing close to it above it - that's too much. beyond that, the entire mix feels very muted and quiet due to not having any headroom from the kicks. likely this was mixed on low-bass-response headphones and that's why there's such a crazy difference there - this desperately needs another pass at mixing it on something with accurate response and then subsequently needs some compression to balance it. beyond that, sidechaining at least the ambience and the backing elements under the kick a bit would help with the pressure as well. i'd suggest really committing to the arrangement first. make something that's distinctly Metris's take on lena's work rather than just taking her work and adding pads behind it. change up the melody a bit, play with chords, update and add new textures that are critical to the work and not window dressing, change the tempo, etc. and then come back and get the workshop's view on it to see how it's going. right now this isn't passable. NO
  14. track has >5db of headroom and little dynamic contrast at first glance. would need a new name if it passes as well. at first glance, this appears to be a palette swap. the notes appear to be pretty close to 1:1 outside of no drums. the synthesis concepts are interesting, but i'll note that the choices actually are a net negative overall for the work - the lead's quieter than the arpeggiating synth since the arp is so much brighter than the lead, as opposed to the opposite in the original, and the long release pads mean that there's some overlap on faster chord progressions. it also has no ending - it starts to fade out, but doesn't quite before it just stops. this is not enough arrangement for our site, unfortunately. i think there's a real place for something with interesting juno-type synthesis here, but per 4.2 of our standards we need transformative arrangement. this is a cover and we don't take those unfortunately. NO
  15. bruh. initial synth hits and subsequent bass and beat are exactly what i expected. lead's got some nice distortion effects on it, it's definitely a grittier vibe to synthwave than we've heard recently. transition at 0:40 is a choice. the track kind of noodles a bit after that - i think the inconsistent beat and bass work is why, it just felt very disjointed for a while. there's a break at 1:09 where it's just pads and the really broad, buzzy lead for a bit. it cuts suddenly to the above image with a heavily detuned and filtered section from another game for a while before it suddenly pops back into the main material again at 2:06. the detuning next to the not-detuned stuff sounds pretty mind-bending for a minute and there's some other grunginess in there somewhere in another synth that's got some oddly tuned stuff going on. it trucks through the B section of the melody before a quick recap of A and then it's done quite suddenly. i need to admit i really, really don't like the middle of the song at all. synthwave is all about the constant motion and consistent driving vibe, and the section from 0:41 through 1:09 doesn't really have that at all. it feels like a bunch of disparate ideas are stuck together. the following break loses a lot of energy and is very short, and then suddenly is into the tape section which i really just don't get all. separate from the concept being really out there, it's uncomfortable to listen to something that's so detuned and only in one ear when there's an abrupt transition to it and from it. i'm running into an issue where i don't think these sections are viable but i don't see a specific element of the standards that they're violating. so i'm going to let the other judges vote first and i'll come back to this after some more thought. ??? edit 1/26: at its core, the middle section doesn't belong here. it's objectively an ill-fitting concept that's executed fine but really doesn't go with the rest. if this wasn't Hudak i'd probably already have rejected it just due to how left-field it is. the artist shouldn't matter here. So that's a NO from me as a result.
  16. I went through a spell of arranging and remixing VGM as an exercise in new production techniques and experimenting with new sounds. I was really into sounds from the Juno-60 which I felt meshed well with this song. The track is equal parts whimsical and sort of dystopian which fits well with the sci-fi sounds of the Juno. This song understandably gets a lot of love and the arrangement itself is pretty faithful to the original. My goal was to retain the vibe with more "modern" (but distinctly 80s) instrumentation. Artist: breadbarn Games & Sources Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES, 1996) Composer: Yoko Shimomura Original song:
  17. I submitted a much rougher version of this one over 4 years ago, and finally got around to revamping it off-and-on over the last few months after digging up the judging feedback on it. It has synthwave elements, but mixed more like a rock track, as I don't particularly like the sleekness of modern synthwave-y music. I didn't like how straightforward my initial arrangement was, so I added a weird section with Seal of Time playing and then skipping on an almost mono-channel degraded cassette (yes, I know cassettes don't really skip like that, no I can't make straightforward music and I don't have a good reason why not!). The bassline is my favorite part, and still might be a smidge too loud, but I like it too much to bring it down or filter it any further. Most of the music I make for OCR has some kind of story embedded into the music, but not here. Just wanted to make a futuristic-sounding version of The Boy Who Had Wings. Speaking of futuristic, this is my first time using the new submission form. It's beautiful. Games & Sources Game - Ys III: Wanderers from Ys Source tracks - The Boy Who Had Wings and Seal of Time There's a large handful of versions of both tracks due to the game being made for several different platforms over the decades, but the melodies of all of them are pretty much the same.
  18. track is mono. stereo is a requirement, so this can't pass as-is. i'll review it through anyways with that in mind. starts out with some bass fading in and eventually some hats. this is a pretty long intro - it's not until 0:45 that we even get a kick, and the snare doesn't come until 1:06. so that's a full minute at the beginning with admittedly some not-super-interesting synths to be listening to. there's some melodic content for the first time at 1:50 - that's simply too long of an intro without the synth work being sublime. at 2:20 or so you add an open hat on top of the existing hat pattern. you'll want to dovetail those together to more simulate a drumset being used - the closed hat sounds wouldn't play when the open hat is struck. this noodles for several more minutes before slowly winding down, but there's nothing else new being added. so, from an overall perspective, i think that there's a neat idea here but it needs a lot of execution help. the synths overall lack panache and punch and as a result are really generic and low-energy. the heavily repetitive background part (in the bass, the 404, and the little bell tones that accompany the bass) are just too repetitive - especially for an original that regularly changes it up! lower norfair has a ton of changes as the track goes on, and none of that is reflected in this remix. separately, it's very clear you're turning on and off channels rather than really crafting a shape for each section - the ending as instruments drop out really reinforces that. there needs to be a lot more intentionality to the overall shape of the piece beyond just clicking in and out boxes. lastly, from a mixing and mastering perspective, the piece lacks verve. the percussion is pretty bog-standard but there's no sidechaining or EQing to make it really pop, and the track overall feels quiet. i think this needs a lot more workshopping before it's ready to rock. there's a neat concept here, but there needs to be a lot of attention paid to the arrangement, to the synth instruments and what they're doing, and then to the mixing and mastering before this is ready for prime time. NO
  19. oh man, look at that audio sausage! right off the bat - you've got a ton of sub-40hz content that needs to be EQ'd out. also the drums are so loud i can't even hear the original through much of it. the track is fun distorted drums (that probably don't need to be so loud, you can be distorted and big without overvolting everything like this) with the original under it essentially unchanged to my ear for the first 1:30. after that you start to do some new stuff, which is great! it's too little too late, however. there just isn't enough transformative arrangement throughout the track. even if the mastering and mixing was good - which they really are pretty rough - this wouldn't be near enough to pass. i recommend muting your drums and make something that's fun to listen to with just the synths that isn't [the original plus a stutter synth]. once you've got that, then the drums are the thing that makes the track great! then you can actually work on mixing the parts together so that they compliment each other. NO
  20. 7/8 is a clever vehicle for a track based on arpeggios. the intiial arpeggios are nice and buzzy, and the subsequent lead and kick are also pretty lo-fi. i didn't care much at all for the kick's tone at all since it crushed everything against the limiter every time it hits, and the mix really sits hard in the 300-350hz range where there's some huge spikes so it's overly dense and hard to differentiate what's going on. i think i'd like the instrumentation and the distortion that's all over the place if i could hear the individual parts more. there's a big shift at 0:50 where it goes to 6/8 and drops the percussion for a bit. again this section is turbo-slammed against the limiter so it's hard to hear what's going on. it goes back to 7/8 at 1:17 and noodles through the flute part - i like the playing with time you do in this section quite a bit. there's a triplet line over top that i really like too. after this, the track very suddenly ends, which was a real disappointment since the vibe was really solid. there's some silence to trim too. overall this is really jammed against the limiter throughout, and like i said everything's sitting in a similar range which makes it hard to differentiate what's going on. some light panning would help there too but ultimately this needs work with volumizing and the kick needs to be sidechained to prevent it murdering everything else every time it hits. i believe backing off the distortion just slightly would help with the similar range issue too since it'd allow more fundamental tone to make it through. i love the concept and i love the synth choices, it just needs some mastering love. NO
  21. holy crap, this is a 262mb wav. i am not going to go through and timestamp somethinig >750s long, so i'll call out my general thoughts. i'll note that usually medleys get judged harshly here since it's hard to do something transformational with 30 seconds per song. as a whole, you've certainly got some stuff in here that's significantly arranged, but there's also a lot that's just a cover and that's not great. the mix is super treble-ly. this is probably due to using whatever synths you're using to simulate everything. i grabbed a random 30s section and the lowest bass content was at 68hz and then it was hard scooped under that, and there was a lot concentrated around the fundamental freqs through maybe 250hz before it started to drop off like expected. this is not a great freq balance and my ears confirm it - it's very dense in the mids and there's no bottom to the track at all. i can hardly hear a kick, and while i can hear the bass regularly because there's no pitched instruments aside from the guitar leads and the bass, there's no meat to it. speaking of lack of backing content, there's no backing elements. it's all lead guitars, occasionally a synth lead with the guitars doing rhythm elements, and a bass and drums. i don't consistently hear any rhythm guitar behind the lead, backing synths that aren't doubling the lead parts outside of a few sections, countermelodic components, etc. it makes for a very bleak and empty soundscape despite some fun drum programming in a few spots and some neat synthy guitar work. i'll note that it does get better as the track goes on, but i shouldn't need to listen for eight minutes to get some synth flourishes in the background. the synth guitars throughout sound like synth guitars, which can work, but it sounds pretty vanilla here. this really needs either some more intentional and better-sounding guitar elements, or else a shift away from synth guitar as the lead entirely. from an arrangement perspective, there's a lot of drum loops. each song's got its own loop, but they essentially don't change for the entire section. the fills that i hear are fun, but again, you can't just be on autopilot aside from transitions. there should be some more variety in there to make it less obvious that it's programmed. i think there's some really fun ideas here! some more love and intentionality to the guitar and drum programming, fleshing out the soundscape some more, and then starting over on the mixing and EQing would do a lot. NO
  22. "That is to say I think this track rules but I'm prepared to be humbled by the judges." TIME TO OIL UP! aside: i went to listen to the original while downloading the track, and it started autoplaying over Youtube. Let's just say that it started right after the initial percussion lick in the original, and the stylistic difference was a surprise =) initial hit is ZOMG YES RAWK, so much so i actually missed the melodic content! it's mixed quietly. there's a half-time section at 0:32 that felt like new material, but then the more aggressive section at 0:48 does some subtractive stuff to the lead which is a fun idea and works great. this goes back to the half-time stuff that i think is new, which is a bit concerning since we're at 50/50 new and remix material right now. 1:42 is, surprise, an aggressive section with the melodic material being represented again by a cutdown version of the melody. in an effort to subvert expectations, though, you go to the original section again, but this time it's louder! it again transitions between the melodic riff and the descending line a few more times (quicker transitions) and then it's done. i posted an ask around where the descending line that first shows up at 0:33 comes from. as it is, i think that part's original, and so that means this is >50% original material, and that means that it can't be posted in this current state. that stinks because i think the track is super fun to listen to and i like the subtractive method of arranging the iconic melodic line of this track. NO DEPENDING ON RESPONSE edit 1/10: the remixer confirmed it's original. i think there's too much original in the work as a result. whether or not it's over 50%, it feels like all the important parts in the mix are based on that original section. so this is a NO from me, dawg. it'd need to have some of that original stuff trimmed back so it's not so close to 50%, or else emphasizing the remixed content more.
  23. i last voted on the first resub of this (out of three! we never see this level of commitment!). my NO vote was primarily based on the significant mastering shortfalls. it's changed a bit since then so i'll approach this fresh. choir into a pretty big band sound to start it off. it's real loud right off the bat and doesn't have a lot of treble in there. there's a fun 404 bass going on that i like, but that high resonant lead tone is really offputting. there's a break at 0:33, but it's hard to grok what the bell lead is playing because it's so loud that it's getting squelched pretty hard. it goes back to the intro instrumentation before another break at 0:57 for the B content. the A content picks back up with a new lead and some tempo-synced pads behind it. there's a lot of personalization here, but the verby string-adjacent lead sounds odd since it doesn't sound like it should be louder than everything else going on - the timbre feels weird. there's a dropoff at about 2:10, and a ritard at the end to finish it off. this feels loud throughout. everything feels crushed as a result there's still a notable peak at 70hz and a ton of consistent content through 350hz, which means you've got a lot of stuff in the same shelf competing for the same space. this is probably why it feels so loud and dense. i also didn't notice any panning - even a little bit can really open up the sound stage to make things more differentiated. beyond that, i like that you're changing leads up to keep it interesting, but some of the leads you're using are not particularly suited to the style you're going for here. i find presets nice to find a general idea of what i'm looking for, but getting into the preset and customizing it from there is where the magic happens and i'd encourage you to try that more. i think your arrangement is fine. the realization and subsequent mixing/mastering of it is where it's being held back right now. NO
  24. my original vote primarily criticized the live performances, the overly simplistic intro/outro, and commented on the backing part being just a little too simple. sax does sound marginally better with zach playing - better tone and intonation, but zach sounds like he's eating the mouthpiece and it's still really overblown especially on the low notes - although the recording quality is not great. GotW's part is pretty quiet - in fact, both zach and the clarinet are quiet - and there's still a gross unison at 0:55. gotw's bass clarinet still occasionally sounds off pitch-wise to my ears. 1:16 honestly sounds like there's distortion or something on the sax's tone. sax solo at 1:46 says some fun stuff. there's another not-great unison and some harmony playing, and a much more intentional outro on the track. i think the opening and outro are a lot better than they were before. i think the drums sound a lot better too. i just still am not comfortable passing the track with the state of the lead parts. if this goes back again, hit me up and i'll pitch-fix the clarinet and record the sax parts for you. this is a fun track and i want it to succeed, and i just don't feel it's there yet. NO
  25. track is mono. stereo is a requirement for us, so this can't pass as-is, but i'll still go through it. also about 7db of headroom. starts out with some minimal blurbs and drum machine beats, and is fleshed out a bit with a square bass and some more static cymbals as it gets going. soon after we get both melodic lines coming in and out alongside one another. they work together better than i expected upon first listen to the originals. these truck alongside one another until a slight break in the beat at 1:41, and then it's back in with a third countermelodic element over top in a pad. it trucks through the melodic the beat and bassline has been the same throughout, and the melodic parts when they're playing are the same throughout as well. there's a countermelodic element that starts at 1:54 that is pretty not in the same key as the rest of the song, so that's an issue. from a sound design perspective, the concepts you're using here could work, but there needs to be a lot more attention paid to making the synth work more detailed and interesting to listen to - tracks that succeed using default sounds like this include a lot more complexity in what those default sounds are saying, and tracks that succeed with similarly laid-back and simple synth lines use synths that are much more interesting to listen to. for this to pass, i'd expect to see a lot more in-depth work with pads, backing synths, bass, and drums to vary it up and craft the soundscape more than the loops that are here, and i'd expect to see more personalization in the lead parts to make it more your arrangement vs. playing through the original melody. beyond that, some work with the mixing to make it less samey throughout and add dynamics and variance will help as well. i think the workshop forum and/or discord can definitely help with these. NO
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