prophetik music

quiet master. interesting drums to start. keys in at 0:15 and they don't sound very realistic. agree with chimpa that there are a lot of conflicting notes throughout, mostly in the backing pad which sounds like it has extra harmonics. i don't know what the pad is doing throughout actually, and most of the time it sounds wrong. the bass has some questionable stuff too and a ton of harmonics which make it tough to hear what fundamental pitch it's playing. this pretty much just does the same thing as the first 1:30 or so over and over. i think the initial drum groove is neat, and the variety of synths you use is fun, but overall there isn't much connected from section to section. the overall discordant sound palette is also a big problem and would need to be corrected. it also needs an ending. NO

as with the other submissions i've heard from you, this is a fun idea! flute performance is appropriately charismatic in articulation and performance. i agree it's hard to hear and needs some compression on that channel specifically to control the natural variances in range vs. projection. the dulcimer combines well with the bass choice as well. 1:59 is a half-diminished vii7/V chord (flute and bass both playing a B#, melody plays F# G# A B under it), so it's technically not wrong. i think it's going to sound funky no matter what without the D# to flesh out the chord, so if you're not willing to do something there to add that into your melody line, it might not really work. as with a few of your other arrangements, this arrangement quickly runs out of legs. finding ways to extend your tracks beyond the "this is a cool idea but it's real short" stage would be great from a compositional technique standpoint for you. the repeating drums and the main instrument (in this case, dulcimer) doing pretty much the same thing for the whole song with no overarching dynamic shape is something that's come up before, and working through expanding that would be a huge benefit for future compositions. i agree with the other judges that the flute's range makes it hard to hear a lot, that there's some funky notes that don't sound right as-is, and that it doesn't quite have enough material and expansion of the themes to make this good yet. Some revisions would do a lot to improve the track. NO

at least four seconds of silence to start, and then it's absolutely slammed after that with a fade-in of all things. there is, at the jump, a lead synth, a bass synth, and the drums. drums sound like a loop as there's not much there besides a fill between sections. i don't hear anything that's not in the original in the synths outside of some embellishment of the riff at like 1:09 and 1:20. there's no pad to fill out the soundscape, essentially no personalization to the lead, the drums are on auto-pilot, the bass doesn't ever change, there's no breaks at all in the track, and there's no variety in sounds used. it does the main loop twice and then does a too-long fade-out. this needs a ton more arrangement for it to pass our arrangement standards. it's also clipping significantly in several places and needs actual mastering done as opposed to what's here. NO

can't find an original decision thread. i'll note that this is, to me, one of the most iconic final fantasy tracks of all time. it just nails the style an vibe so well. sfx to start. the lo-fi is strong in this one - it's really thin to start, but fleshes out a bit when lucas comes in. lucas's tone here is better than some other tracks, but not great. GotW's bass clarinet is fun to hear, but it's mic'd poorly - there's a lot more volume on lower pitches as the air column gets longer, indicating incorrect mic placement. there's also a completely gross unison with both instruments having bad tone as well as being wildly out of tune, and that's a deal-breaker right there especially when it could have been adjusted in audacity or something, not even expensive software. lucas picks up the B theme at about 1:15. the lack of vibrato really hurts his tone here. there's a solo section starting at about 1:46, and the shape of the solo is nice. it's still pretty honky throughout. GotW comes in and solos at 2:10, and the intonation throughout is rough, especially right at the beginning and another unison that's equally bad as before. 2:38ish the instrumentalists are done from the sound of it, and the track kind of just noodles along until it's done with some more sfx. i thought this ending highlights the thinness of the arrangement - the drums are pretty active actually, not really in style, and aside from that you've got a pad instrument and a guitar with no bass that i heard. this makes the intro and ending very thin and feel like they're missing something. i don't think this is up to our standards across the board. both lucas and GotW's performances have some notable flaws in intonation/timbre/execution, although i love the instrumentation choices and (for the most part) what they're playing. the backing part is simple to the point of too much, and the intro and outro both feel like they're missing stuff. NO

big arena feel to the drums initially, with some similarly-big and wide synths to flesh it out. 0:37 did feel particularly treble-heavy - there's a bit spike around 2.5k that you may want to cut back on a bit. around 0:54 there's a backing line that comes in and is louder than the melodic line, which isn't a positive. around the shift at 1:12, i realized that the beat (which was novel initially) hadn't really changed yet, and it was becoming a bit stale. the combined section at 1:29 works from a melodic/harmonic standpoint. there is a lot going on, though, and it's hard to keep track of what's what. you may want to pare that section back a bit to make it make more sense aurally. there's a break at 1:47 with some sfx, and then the beat's back at 2:04 with fewer extra bits, so that's a nice change. 2:24 brings in more backing elements, and this is where it starts to get overly dense again - there's just too much going on. i can mostly hear everything, but it's difficult to figure out where my ears are supposed to go. the ending section is a no from me. i get where it's coming from, but the long tail on the notes, the lack of contextualization in how it's brought in and then realized, and the suddenness of it really doesn't work, and then the track's over with a sour taste in your mouth as a result. the mixing of the parts is mostly fine, but a lot of those synths are sitting in similar frequency shelves. i'd say some more specific EQing would help a ton, as well as trimming down some of the really wild freqs that are making it feel sharp and irritating to listen to. beyond that, some attention to decluttering and the ending would also be needed. NO

starts out with some sfx including the SEGA theme, which is fun. we get some chippy drums right off the bat and some heavily lfo-panned synths that sound intentionally chippy with the melody soon after, and then at 0:36 the drums come in. the beat is pretty boomy initially and is pretty 80s arena in sound with loads of reverb. there's a synth bass soon after that's also pretty 80s. the mix sits in this combo for some time until we get a new lead synth at 1:11, but this is still build - the 'real' lead synth doesn't hit until 1:25. there's some dissonance where the long-delay synths run into each other on some of the chromatic elements at the ends of phrases. the b material shows up at 1:54 (depending on where you put the b material start). the shift in drums and groove here follows the original's overall shape. after a big drum fill, we get the a material at 2:21 with a lot of new ideas, which i like. there's a fun synth solo, there's some arpeggiated backing elements, and it moves through back to the b section at about 2:50ish. this is back to being pretty close to the original. a is back at 3:31, and it is back to being pretty close to the original as well, and it again goes through to the b section. this is too much repetition, especially with how similar the realization of each of these sections is to the original, and how even the drum fills are the same for each section. after the b section is a chippy realization of the a/b themes for not quite a minute, some sfx, and it's done. overall, the sound quality really isn't there. i think the 80s vibe you're going for is a neat idea for this game especially considering the context, but the synths are generic and boring throughout and they're also overused - there's no mixing up sounds at any point. similarly, there's no real dynamics, builds, or anything to drive energy throughout. the overly repetitive nature of the remix is to blame for at least some of that - cutting out two minutes should be fairly easy and wouldn't compromise what you're doing. from an arrangement perspective, there's not much outside of the synth solo that's not already in the original. mixing up what you're doing where and personalizing it more would be a great choice. i think the workshop could really be a great resource for this. i'd recommend you spend some time talking with the folks there, either in the discord or in the forums. NO

what a weird little original. wow, that initial sound is really grating. i don't think combining heavily detuned leads with a 7-6 suspension is a good combination. the steel drum sample that's being used also doesn't really do it for me at all either. larry's right that it's a lot of the original for a while right off the bat. the section at 1:24 has more arrangement going on than the first minute and a half by far, and it's honestly still pretty tame. the synth choices really drag it down overall, but the strings larry mentioned and the glide synth were both nice. the rest of the track noodles through some combination of the elements heard by that point with different instruments dropping in and out. the track certainly doesn't need to be five minutes long, you've heard it all after under two minutes. i really strongly believe that this track is not a good one to use as a demo to play with highly detuned synths. the key element - the 7-6 suspension that's right off the bat (no pun intended) and then used throughout really doesn't play well with detuning. i also think you need a lot more arrangement elements to string a song out this long. what's here isn't near enough. beyond that, it's hard to talk about the mastering elements with how distractingly difficult it is to listen to the lead synth. NO

that really sounds like the default FL keys right off the bat for sure. i agree that at 0:30 it should have done something else - the next 30s were just stat padding. it's also odd that the initial arpeggio doesn't have something else happening to it - some freq shifts, a filter, some lfo - just something moving on it rather than being static. the initial beat sounds nice - i like that the kick is really tight, that fits the arp well. i think this section is also unnecessarily doubled and could have been half the time. lastly, whatever the bass is doing at 1:15 just sounds dissonant until 1:23 - it doesn't appear to match the chords and also appears to be shifting pitch during that time. 2:00 has some synth padding added, and this continues to be a very slow build. this is starting to be a negative as nothing's really changing within each section. a song's direction and energy level shouldn't be a ziggurat - there's a flow to it that's not really being handled here. the atonal elements of the bassline continue to show up here. we get drums and claps in at 3:00 and i don't really have a ton of opinions on the claps - larry is a clap connoisseur as you can see. we get some countermelodic material at 4:00, although it's a little hard to hear under the sidechaining and the offbeat hats. this is repeated for another minute at 5:00 which is excessive even for this the slow pace of this remix. at 6:00, the beat and arp drops out while everything else is still going. there's a filtro outro as well, but it never even really gets down to 0 - it just cuts out after a while. this is nowhere near the level of expansive arrangement we expect. you do have 6:30 of music here, but it's arguably closer to 2:30 total if you take out the padding. consider more than a sound upgrade and beat - look for new chords, new countermelodic content, new synths to carry elements of the track, variations in time signature or rhythms...anything that's going to make it more keep and less nobuo. NO

my original vote critiqued the instrument quality, the overly repetitive nature of the arrangement, and the original section in the middle being overly exploratory. opens with brass and synth strings, and quickly brings in flute (interesting idea!) and some rock drums. 0:30 is kind of where it starts up with a more consistent groove. the bass here is honestly pretty distracting despite it just doing eighth notes - the stuttered nature of how it's being used and how loud it is feels confusing in context. the flute doesn't sound real but it does sound nice. the synth guitar sounds fine as well - obviously not real, but works fine. 1:07 brings in a rock organ alongside the other party members. i can't say i cared for that patch much. at about 1:41 there's a synth lead that comes in also and i also didn't care for this synth's tone, although i liked that it was doing. there's obviously some attempts to keep it moving and active but i found the core of the tone to be irritating. 2:19 is the final recap of the melodic material. there's an outro in the strings and bells at 2:42 and it's done. from an overall arrangement perspective, there's a real disjunct feel. there are numerous breaks in the realization that result in it feeling like it's resetting or restarting over and over again, and combining that with the very recognizable and arguably overused initial riff and the very bog-standard drums outside of a few fills made it feel more repetitious than it probably actually is. this is aside from the fact that nothing sounds particularly realistic - there's a lot of idiomatic usage, but the sound quality just isn't there. i think this is definitely an improvement but not there yet. NO

heavily compressed beat. the brickwall limiter on this is significant. we get some bass and instrumentation around the 30 second mark, and there's not a lot of volumizing going on, just a lot of layering stuff on top, so it's pretty dense-sounding. the chorded version of Toad's voice clips is a funny idea but admittedly wasn't immediately clear what it was. melodic material finally hits at 1:02, and it sounds fine. there's a stutter synth in the background that combined with the melodic material makes a fast-panning sound that is confusing on headphones. 1:32's section with the strings made me realize there's not much in the lower register outside of the bass - it sounds a little hollow there. beat drops at 1:48 for a bit and then it's back in going through the main riff from the melody. 2:28 sounds like the start of the end as things start to drop. it subtracts through a few lines of the melody riff and then it's done. i think what LT's talking about is that, even at the biggest part of the arrangement, you've got the beat, the melody, the bass, and a single mono synth stuttering as a filler pad. i don't hear an actual pad filling out the soundscape, and it makes it feel very open as a result. that can be a positive for some tracks, but i feel it's not as positive here. i also think that there's a heavy reliance on the first few bars of the melody over and over again - 1:48 until the end at almost 3:00 is essentially just repeating that line over and over with no variation or alterations outside passing it through a few different leads. there's a lot more to the melody than the initial riff, and it's also ok to not have the melody playing 24/7 in a track. you were patient in the intro, so it's clearly something you can do - i think there's just a little too much of it at the end. i think LT's call of "lots of little things adding up" makes sense to me. the mastering is very loud, the panning effect is hard to listen to, the lack of a pad, the constant usage of the main riff - all of those aren't deal-breakers but definitely sum up to more than they are individually. i think that there's a great, fun, bouncy track here that's pretty close, and some simple adjustments would make for a far stronger track overall. NO

very fitting stylistic adaptation here, as the emphasis on the diminished fifth really fits the pentatonic scale that a lot of jazz is built around. the beat and bass sound cribbed straight out of various other songs in the style so that's on point. i liked the string machine slide at 0:46, and overall your leads between the ep and guitar sound solid (the guitar lead is a bit stilted but only a little bit). i agree that this is too short as it is. i'm pretty firm about the two-minute unwritten rule usually unless something really blows me away, and the slower tempo here makes that difficult to eclipse. there are a few times it sounds like you explore alternate chords under the melodic material - i'd recommend doing that some more as a method for adding some time on the clock here. similarly, even slightly varying the backing guitar chords could make a real difference in the vibe of a particular section and allow for some more exploration. NO

remix appears to be based on the first minute or so of the video linked in the first post. starts with sustained string machine, and the brings in a saw lead that for some reason sets my teeth a bit on edge a bit. beat comes in at 0:35. there's some more original bits, and the lead comes back before an organ section that jams through the chords. there's some more rhythmic elements in the lead at 1:45 - i can hear the animusic comparison in here with some of the interplay elements you mentioned. this builds up through 2:20, and then we have a ritard going into a final chord. doesn't overstay its welcome which is nice. the lead instrument gets used quite a bit in this track. my own reaction to it aside, i think it's probably too much for such a bland lead. there's only a few places where, for example, the lead even cuts out at all - usually it's just playing constantly from when it comes in until it shuts off for a while. that lends itself to a track that is overall shaped the same, and that lack of dynamic contrast throughout is not a positive. similarly, the track appears to be lacking overall compression, which is why it feels so quiet throughout. i would love to hear more attention paid to the lead instrument's synthesis - that is, maybe mixing it up during the track, or allowing some more breaks in what it's saying - as well as fleshing out the mastering more. some more EQ work and adding compression to the track so the snare doesn't pop out of the waveform like a cactus spine would significantly improve the listening experience. the arrangement i think is pretty much great - 2:00 through 2:30 are by far the best part of the track, and there's so many little flourishes and fun elements that are going on in there. leaning into that throughout the track would really result in a superb final product. NO

opening is bells and drums. i agree the drums sound pretty robotic, lot of high freqs. the keys and bass sound fine when they come in though. jett's entrance is pitchy and it stays pretty pitchy for a while. nat's entrance is notable as much because of how much more in tune her voice is - the first run here sounds heavily pitch-adjusted, but it's a lot more natural in the combined sections and in the second verse. nat, watch your ee vowel - it gets very bright and sticks out pretty regularly vs. the rest of your sung english. the combined sections were notably not sync'd very well also - unisons are the hardest things to sing together both for intonation and for timing, and this is a good example of why. there's some really nice moments with the vocals. the tempo moves a lot, but the parts where the singers sit back on the beat properly (like at 2:18 for example) really pop. similarly, when the vowels line up with the melody line (like at 2:35 or 2:52), it's a really nice feel. the background parts throughout are essentially just piano (sometimes only one or two notes sustaining) and bass, which is too little for a lot of the track. there's no pad work at all which i think is a mistake - as it is, the vocals are so loud that you can't hear anything else, but as soon as they stop singing for even an instant, it's like there's nothing underneath them. a more fleshed-out backing part would make a huge difference. i think that, similarly, the drums don't not work, but they're a missed opportunity. people rag on ballad drums as being paint by number, but percussion in a ballad serves a critical purpose of nailing down the beat so that you can sit back into it and not rush. jett's singing often rushes the beat and feels like they are trying to pull ahead, and a more firm and defined drum part that wasn't just there for the snare may have helped with that. i think this is an arrangement idea that really has some wings. i like the idea of a more minimal backing part and certainly don't think you need a fully-scored orchestra or full band behind the vocals. i do think it needs something more to help carry the harmonic components, thereby allowing the vocals to be a part of the whole rather than most everything you can hear. i also think that pitch-adjusting nat's voice and not jett's (or at least not enough) is tough because not only is it easier to hear intonation issues in lower voices due to range and how physics works, but also jett's voice is the first voice you hear and it scoops right off the bat. this needs some revisions i think, but like i said, i really like the idea, and the original's melody is honestly beautiful. NO

i believe the user id is incorrect for this user, given that user 1149 hasn't visited since 2003 and never posted. fat triple groove right off the bat, no sidechaining that was obvious to me. the groove builds in an additive fashion until 0:22 when it changes entirely to the melodic content from the middle of the original. there's also no sidechaining here so it sounds pretty aggressive, and the use of heavy fm synthesis in the bass gives it a really mean sound which i like. 1:09 is a shift back to the original groove, without the vocoder synth. this goes back to 0:29's melodic content with some different scoring, and then eventually repeats the section at 0:29 outright. 1:53 cranks it up to the same energy level as 0:49, and does a lot of the same things scoring-wise. it goes through these a bit until a sudden sfx ending, which then is clipped before it's actually done fading out. this is a neat start that's got some fun ideas. i like most of the synth choices, and the aggressive style fits the original a lot. there's a surprising amount of repetition for a track that's only 2:16 long, however - i can easily identify roughly 40 seconds of repeated content, which is not quite a third of the track. for something so short, that's too much. there's also a lot going on in the lower-mid range that makes the track sound very dense to me - at least part of this is the choice for some of the lead synths to be pretty low pitch-wise, and that muddies the bottom end for me. i'd love to hear less repetition and less gunky low-end overall. NO

near-constant clipping alongside a wisconsinite's dream waveform. there's not really an intro, as it dives right into the melodic content. after the initial runthrough of that melody, though, we get a much more fleshed-out beat, countermelodic content, and pad work starting at about 0:28. this is a lot more interesting than the intro. right after this, though, at 0:56, we get the B section of the melody with the same backing, similar countermelodic content, and (most egregiously) the same lead. at this point that lead needs to change as it's not only boring on sustains (there's no motion on it at all), it's also heavily focused on the right ear and way, way louder than everything else. the section at 0:28 is repeated 1:1 at 1:49 and 2:46 (and nearly 1:1 at 1:23, but just the kick), and then the following section at 0:56 is repeated 1:1 at 2:18. that's a lot of repetition, even for trance. it's possible there's some very minimal changes in there that i missed, but the performance of the lead, the bass, the countermelodic content, the drum work, and the pads all sounded the same. then there's no ending, not even a fadeout. trance tracks have an easy out for endings - just subtract elements of the background until you're left with a kick - so a lack of an ending is not a positive. from a mastering perspective, the lead's super loud and not centered, and the track clips like mad. i think you've got it so hot to make it sound loud, which is understandable. my suggestion is to roll off the sound content under your kick's pitch. it looks like your kick sits around 55-60hz, which is a bit high but fine, so having a much harder roll off of everything below maybe 45-50hz would add a lot of room to the mix for you to make it feel big outside of that. after that, spending some time with the EQ will help ensure that there's no overlaps that cause things to get lost. the same lead throughout emphasizes the repetition in the backing parts, and the mastering really needs some love. this one isn't there yet. NO

make sure you listen to the entire original track, judges: don't miss the funky section at 1:56. easy to see how an epic orchestral approach would fit this original. starts out with orchestral taikos and E. S. Posthumus-style choir and orchestra elements. the brass samples are a touch behind the beat which is pretty distracting. there's a big drop into the 0:40 hit, and we get some wubs alongside orchestral elements for the 30s or so that this section's going on. the transition between wubulous and the subsequent orchestral section is jarring in the extreme, and the orchestral section appears to be the intro without taikos. it does this for a bit, loads up some kicks for a transition, and then repeats Wub City. this is, as far as i can see, a 1:1 copypasta, so that means about half the track is repeated nearly note for note. then the track ends with no outro or acknowledgement of the change. this is a no from me, dawg, primarily due to the lack of overall content. i think both individual sections you wrote are interesting, but that's not quite 1:15 of music repeated once to make it 2.5 minutes. expansion of the arrangement is needed. NO

fm influence is immediately audible. there's a ton of attention going into each individual instrument, which is obvious with the heavy lfo action on each element. melodic elements enter at 0:26, but the main body of it comes in at 0:41. there's an active bass doing interesting things, and a variety of pad work to provide chordal elements. we get a break at 1:11 that's more exploratory, with a big build into 1:38's content. this tones down quickly and noodles through some transformations until we get melodic material again at 2:39 through 3:10. 3:10 switches gears significantly to be more pad work for over a minute, and then we're done. so, from an arrangement side, there's lots of interesting things here. from a synthesis side, i can respect what you're trying for throughout, with all the heavily customized original hardware tones, but it just doesn't sound good to me at all. part of it is the heavy detuning, which i don't care for at all and immediately draws me out of the work several times (like 1:56, it just sounds like an accordion). part is the lack of any real drums, relying heavily on too-small static hits throughout to drive rhythm. part of it is the dullness of the mastering - there simply isn't much over 1khz in any of the synths until we get to the pads at the end, and so it sounds flat and muted for much of the track. and part of it is just that i don't care for the synth sounds you settled on. the bass tones throughout are interesting and enjoyable, and the glittery pad that you use occasionally is nice, but the organ tone that's used around, say, 0:35 is uninspired, the countermelodic lead used a lot around 2:08 is grating, and the lead used for most of the melodic elements i already called out as being street-accordion-like, not a positive correlation. i love the attention to detail and the method by which you approached this arrangement. i just don't care at all for how you realized it. i'm not sure how to tell you to change it, as your methodology was intrinsic to the creation of this track. however, as it is now, it's not passable by me. NO

intro is mostly drums and some ep with some inaudible vox behind it. the melodic material picks up at 0:23 with some frankly inaudible mastering - the drums are super boomy and way heavy in the low end, and as a result crush everything else out. there is also immediately obvious clipping that continues for most of the track. the drum issue is mostly that the kick and snare sound like they have a ton of bass content in them, and it's bullying out other elements of the track. a freq analysis shows what's wrong here - there needs to be a ton of work rolling off sub-bass content (like everything under 40hz) and then everything needs to be turned down by about half. then an EQ pass to get everything out of the 50-150hz range and shelf each instrument into its own slot so it's not stepping on everything else. this is rough enough that it's an immediate rejection, so i'll proceed from the perspective that this needs to be fixed and still look at the rest of the arrangement. note that i'm having issues identifying individual instruments aside from the lead since they're all in the same range and layering on each other. we get the melody right off the bat, and then there's some countermelodic content in there too occasionally. the stuttered ep/chordal elements repeat for a while underneath also. we get a break at about 1:07 that's led by what sounds like a clavinet or ep, and then we're in a recap section driven by the stuttered ep from the first chorus. the second drop of melodic content starts at 1:50 and sounds pretty similar to the first time around. this is a fine time to mix it up so you're not using the same synths doing the same thing for a second time through. after this is an outro (?) section starting at 2:19 with some vox over the intro content, and then it loops and fades instead of a traditional ending. fades can be useful, but i feel like you had a fair shot at a real ending here with how you toned it down - you may want to explore that. this needs significant mastering work before it's viable. please consider the workshop forum or the workshop discord channel for additional assistance. NO

interesting idea for this. kalimba is uniquely suited to the original's approach. i like the hybrid electro/organic approach too. combining traditionally electronic elements like the spit snare, hard volume cuts, and the synth bass with super-organic instruments like a kora and kalimba is great. there are a few obvious loops in the percussion that were overused (the timbale loop at 0:56 for example). the iconic arpeggio is only used occasionally, which is a fine idea to have it weave in and out, but there's not much nuance in how it's used (similar to the aforementioned loop). either it's playing or not, with no dynamics around how it's brought in and out. it's like flipping a switch or pressing a button to get something to play. it doesn't help that the timbale loop has more verb than the very low-reverb rest of the track, so it sounds distinctly like it's in a different space. the melody finally comes in at 1:45, and at this point the background's been the same for almost two minutes. it's nice to get the melodic content in, but i'd have expected some variance at this point in the track beyond turning on and off percussion loops. there's some variance to the melody at 2:30 to fit the instrument, which i think is fine. the melody is done at roughly 3:03, and the track just loops through the backing percussion for another 20 seconds until it's done. AA is a patient original, with the melodic material not coming in until about a third of the way through the piece. you do a similar thing here where you wait pretty long to bring in the melody, allowing the chord progression and arpeggiated elements carry the work until then. i'd say though that this exposes both the heavy use of looping material (and machine-gun repeated notes in your sampler) as well as the lack of overall delta in your track. it doesn't go anywhere. the groove initially is neat, but it is the same throughout, and your variances are exclusively with very prominent elements turning on and off with no volumization to make their swell and fade an actual swell and fade. i think this is a neat tech demo. i don't think it's ready for the site yet. NO

mix is a sausage from the looks of it. it's a super aggressive opening, and there is zero bass presence. it peaks at about 130hz , there's much less between there and 40hz, and then it falls off. i can't hear the bass or the bass element of the kick at all. it's like it was hard cut - the bass shows up when the fundamental's above 130hz and disappears below that. so this is a hard no, there's something wrong with the mastering that needs to be fixed. probably need to listen on less bass-amplifying headphones. intro is immediately fear factory, and reminds me of magfest performances with the rolling gait of the track and the high-energy style. the melodic content comes in after a quick drop at 0:42, and the dual guitars with melody and harmony sound good (although harmony part is a bit louder than lead). i wouldn't mind hearing more stereo separation between those two parts. there's a drop at 1:23 to give some space, and after a few ensemble elements we're into a solo section at 1:43 or so. the melody's back at 2:20, and this is roughly the same as the first time through the melodic content at 0:42. i'd prefer there wasn't the same level of copypasta for this section. it rolls through the melodic content and then just kind of ends. after the extended intro, i'd have expected more on the end of this track. the mastering is definitely a hard no for me, but the arrangement probably needs some work still. i like the first few minutes, but repeating the same melodic approach was a let-down as was the ending. i'd love to see more interpretation there. NO

outside of a few tiny spikes, this has 4-5db of headroom. extended fade-in, as expected based on the description. the pad used has a very long tail, at least six seconds based on the duration of chord change overlap. around 1:15 i start to hear some monophonic elements under the pad but they're very quiet. the chord patterns may indeed mirror freya's theme, but they aren't particularly apparent if so. the chord at roughly 3:00 is pretty aggressively discordant. this goes on through obtuse chord changes until the 6 minute mark when it starts to fade out. interesting that the only rhythmic element in the entire piece shows up at the end there. there is nothing here that ties to freya's theme in a fashion i can identify without a breakdown from the artist. this is just a pile of (pretty heavily filtered) pads playing various chords. maybe i need a planetarium to grasp it further. edit: it's not obvious with my initial writeup, but i want to call out that i actually really enjoy the track as a conceptual backing work to something else. ultimately though we're a remix site, so if i can't tie it to freya's theme, i can't vote yes ultimately. if there's something i'm missing, i'm happy to reconsider. NO

fun initial groove. there's a bit of machine-gun affect on a few of the instruments but it's some neat sounds. 0:31's where the melodic material comes in the first time. the lead instrument is pretty obviously fake in an uncanny-valley way, but i like how you've played around with the melody a bit to make it more instrument. the solo guitar at 1:34 doesn't really sound like it's in the same place sound-wise - i think among other things it's EQed very differently, and also doesn't have any verb on it, so it sticks out. 1:55 sounds much like 0:42, enough that i'll call it copypasta until the countermelodic element comes in. then it very suddenly ends with no prep. i think this one's not quite there, but it's more of a sum of issues thing than any one glaring element. i did not like the solo guitar in the middle at all - it was alternately sharply EQed and meandering in notes, and never seemed to fit. the groove is the same throughout and never changes. the lead does interesting things but is used in a non-idiomatic way and feels pretty fake throughout. lastly, almost a third of the track is copy/pasted as well. i think these add up to a not-quite-there. i might be making perfect the enemy of good but i think these issues really bring down the overall product. NO

not quite 5db of headroom. also about 20s of padding after the fadeout. intro bells and pad sound nice. initial drum groove is fine, although the bass in the intro is almost inaudible. the groove hits at 0:18, and the drums sound pretty rough. there's a lot of bass content in the snare, the hats occasionally pop forward in the mix like they're from a different kit, and the kick has a ton of really boomy head noise like it's from an arena rock kit. i'd spend some time crafting the sound on that kit more so it's not so big. from an arrangement perspective, MW's correct in saying it's very repetitive and much the same throughout. there's some ways to improve that, including adding additional elements, varying your instrumentation throughout, altering chords, and messing with the melodic material itself. any of those changes would make a huge boost in the overall level of the mix. NO

my original review commented on the extremely hot mastering and overall short amount of development. this is still heavily compressed, it just has the limiter's max turned down. the intro has a ton of crushing going on in the orchestral instruments. the section with the actual melodic material sounds better - the bass is a bit loud, but the overall balance is better and it is still a fun vibe. the section at 1:23 is better, but the sidechain-adjacent pads are late and sound on the beat rather than off which is kind of a funny mistake. 2:08's build is nice and exciting, and the actual hit at 2:24 is again a solid groove. 2:41's tempo change and key change is a good idea to mix it up a bit, and the continuing accelerando into the end is high-energy and forward-focused. the ending feels a little janky due to the way that deceleration affects groove, but i get what you're going for. i agree with MW that overall there's just one section of melodic material repeated, with slight overlays in each one. there needs to be more development of the arrangement beyond just changing the overall key and adding sfx on top. this is indeed a lot better however than the first entry. NO

upbeat intro. there's a bunch of fun effects going on in the beginning that build up nice into the drop at 0:23. there's some voiceover at 0:40 that i wasn't really expecting, but that sounds ok. there's some singing that comes in at 0:53, and i agree that the singing line does not fit the chords going on underneath. the chorus here is Db Ab/C Eb/G Ab, with an F/A at 1:15 as a sparkle chord (secondary dominant, this is a V7/ii which is a clever idea) into ii V as the turnaround. so that's pretty straightforward and has some fun stuff, like stepping from Ab to A to Bb. from a melodic perspective, the first line over Db and Ab is fine because it's F and quickly descends in a scalar fashion to a C, which is fitting with the key (though sitting on the Db over the Ab/C isn't a great sound). it then goes back up to the F over the Eb/G, which doesn't work. This goes down to Eb and Db, and by the time it gets to Db, it's over the Ab again (fourth over a major chord does not work since it conflicts a half step away with the third of the chord, a C). "let me be your love" here works because it's settling on the Eb, which is the fifth. the second time through the chorus, the melodic material again starts on an F, but this time sits on the upper part of that, and does it in an adjacent key. the melody goes F Ab Gb F, which is fine if the key was Db, but being in Ab the Gb and F don't sound right. Gb isn't in Ab, that's the flatted 7 instead, and so it should probably be a G, and then the line resolves with an Ab/C under it on F which isn't part of that chord. it sits on the F over the Ab for a bit and then goes up to the A for the F/A, which would be good but it gets there before the F/A happens so it sounds like an A against an Ab chord. the last part, "let me be your love", is F to Ab which is fine over Bbm, but sounds weird over Eb (since F is the 9th and Ab is the 11th and against the G in the Eb chord). /wordvomit the rest is more of the same. i like the vocal flips that are applied throughout, i just wish they were in a different key entirely. it's even more exacerbated at 2:27 because you've got the highly chromatic melodic material with the lead singing that's not quite in the key again. i won't do an entire breakdown since i don't have time before work, but i'd love to hammer out some concepts with this over a call, kris, since i think there's a dope track here if you just pitch-shifted the entire background up a fourth. not even kidding. the backing parts are excellent and i like the back and forth between the voiceover and singing. i also think that a few slight changes would still keep the melodic material recognizable but maybe hide the chromaticism from the singing elements. this is such a good idea. but i'm on larry's side. the vocals don't fit the track at all, but they could! NO