prophetik music

oh, that fat overtony bass and snappy snare are a great vibe right off the bat. really eclectic combination of synths right away. the not-sax and arp leads do a great job of keeping the melodic material front and center without ever really focusing on it, which is a neat trick. there's a lot of blurbs and bloops going on that keep your ear moving. there's a bit of a reset at 1:37, and then there's some funky beat work at 1:47 under a second reimagining of the melodic material. some more intense drum work and a glitchy fade, and it's done quick. this is a great one! there's a ton of clever ideas taking the original's unique elements and recreating them in new ways. and it sounds super clean despite the variety of stuff going on. excellent work. YES

whoa, great original! never heard of this game. initial presentation is much slower, but it works pretty well to let the melody breathe a bit more with this arrangement. there's some fun flourishes in the intro, and a fairly straightforward adaptation of the melodic material. there's some added material that fleshes out the original without being overwhelmingly original. the drums are essentially the same pattern and velocity throughout, although there's a few fills which are desperately needed to mix it up. there's a break around 2:12 that is certainly needed at that point, and after that it goes into a short solo section, and a blow through the melody before ending on a quick flourish. there's a weird cymbal sound that sounds like it's added in post at the end of this that isn't needed. the elephant in the room with this one is that it simply isn't mastered very well. there's little to nothing above 10khz and a ton of content (i think it's the bass) at like 150hz, so it sounds very dark and condensed and musty. the bass tone especially has essentially no harmonics so it sounds very plodding...the chorus on it isn't doing it any favors. i think there's some EQing needed to expand especially the lead guitar's tone and notch the bass in so it doesn't have to be so loud on the fundamental to make it be heard. i think the arrangement's fine if fairly conservative, but i don't think it's transcendent or anything. with that in mind, i don't think the mastering is good enough to call this one a postable track. the myriad DoD submissions we regularly get are mastered cleaner than this pretty consistently, so I think at least another mastering pass is needed before we can post it. NO

the initial ocean sounds are surprisingly indistinct. the instruments in the opening are all in the same range, which makes it hard to really hear anything until about the 1:02 mark when the rest of the intro stuff drops. this represents over a third of the track. a quick glance at the opening section shows a huge amount of sub-40hz content, and even content below 10hz that's as loud as 100hz is. it's no wonder it sounds muddy. this desperately needs a filter to trim the fat. the melodic content really kicks in around 1:05, when the tempo picks up. the main body of the track here feels very big, which is good, although it is super generic. there's a short break for about 30 seconds, which features elements we've heard before in different synths - for example 1:07 and 2:02 are very similar to the point that they're basically palette swaps. this builds into a copypasta of 1:18 through 1:46, and then it ends with a clipped version of an earlier melody. the intro isn't bad but it's hard to hear everything with the synth choices and how loud the ocean SFX are. the actual main body of the remix, is from 1:05-2:47. this consists of the initial presentation of the big house section (1:05-1:46), a repeat of the intro melody with arp in different synths (1:46-2:02), and a repeat of the big house section (2:02-2:44) with a short blurb at the end. that means that the first minute is hard to hear and the last minute is copypasta, and the track is under three minutes long. this is honestly a lot better of a submission in terms of realization than some of your previous posts. from a mastering perspective, the main body of the house stuff sounds solid if bland - the kick is nice and meaty, the saws aren't overpowering, and the bass sounds fine for a non-sidechained option. the entire track however needs significant filtering on the low end (even the house parts have a lot of sub-40hz content, way too much). the opening could use some volumization to balance the instruments, and you may want to consider moving some instruments to other octaves so it's not overlapping so much. from an arrangement perspective, the last third being essentially a direct repeat isn't a great look. adding countermelodies or varying up the melody, chords, or backing rhythmic elements would help a lot to differentiate between the parts. just changing the q on the lead isn't enough to make it truly different. this needs some more workshopping. it is an interesting first attempt though! i definitely think there's something here. NO

the string intro sounds charismatic and creative, but the samples are objectively not good. the heavily filtered guitar playing the DbG initial jam is fun, and the pizz-style strings are more fitting when they're happening around 1:00-1:15 than they were in the intro. when the arrangement relies on them, it sounds like a lot of copypasta - that is, the same instruments playing the same things over and over. the parts of the track i liked the least featured this kind of repetition, like at 1:40. the guitar at 1:43 sounds great. right after this though is what's almost a complete repeat of the 1:30 before the guitar break. same riffs in the lead instruments, same orchestration. this is probably already enough to reject the track between the repetition and the strings sounding so obviously not real. there's a fun rhodes solo break at 4:06, complete with some clavinet and EP comping. there's a slick synth solo at 4:35, and then we're into a great guitar solo with some really fun verve. aaaaand then at 5:38 the earlier section is again copypasted in. this is particularly egregious even if it does bookend the track like MW mentioned above, since it feels like it should be prepping for an end and we still get the shuffle section at 6:04 and some other stuff before we get an actual ending (which doesn't even feel particularly prepped). this is ultimately sunk by two main things. one is that the strings just don't sound good when they're the lead instrument. they do a nice job comping under solos and functioning as stabs here and there, but there isn't the breadth of tone that you really need for being a leading instrument or timbre. this is exacerbated by the second issue, which is that this is about 3.5 minutes of music and the track is nearly seven minutes long. this needs some significant work done on the chopping board to cut out a lot of repetition. the difficult part - at least from OCR's perspective - is that this work needs to be done while still maintaining 50% source usage. the best parts of this track are the solos, so ensuring you still have enough source without it being copy/paste to get there will be critical. ultimately i agree with MW. the guitar work is superb. the concept is also great. the execution is lacking. NO edit 10/20: i'd like to first say that i appreciate the significantly patient response to the original thread. as you can see, we were not 100% on our decision, so it makes sense that there'd be some differences between us all. the string samples for the entire first major section starting at 0:55 do not sound realistic. they are obviously (to me) synthesized. the section at 1:22ish is particularly obvious to me as those fast runs just sound like glissandi and that isn't idiomatic for a stringed instrument. they sound like someone is playing them on a keyboard, and are at their best when they're in the back. another section is the stabs at 2:18 where the first several notes are louder and the next is quieter but has the same timbre - this is a dead giveaway for synthetic dynamics vs. the differences in how a string instrument sounds at different volumes. that said, they play fun things, and they're interesting to listen to. it's certainly possible i leaned heavily on this because i really don't care for synthesized strings. it's probably not a dealbreaker by itself. i noted several times that there is a lot of repetition in the track. in the scope of a much longer work, i don't think there's that much repetition, ultimately. however, for the scope of this as a standalone work as submitted to our site, there is a lot. several sections are repeated wholesale. you can describe how you've changed the backing parts repeatedly when they happen, but ultimately it doesn't matter if you've changed some tertiary countermelodic elements - what matters is that i, as the listener, couldn't tell the difference between several sections without multiple relistens - and that's bad! you don't want to repeat the same instrument playing the same melodic material with almost the same backing instrumentation and the same drums four or five times in a piece regardless of the scope or timeframe. that's not good composing. i recognize it's hard to tell when you've listened to the same thing for an extended period of time - i certainly still get caught up in the same issue 20+ years into my development as a composer and musician. i really didn't care for this. it's also possible that, as i tend to focus on repetition as bad, that i called this out as being a real problem. i think it's poor technique and the track should be way shorter. i don't think by itself this is a dealbreaker. i'd like to point out that, while i didn't complain about the mixing, i agree with others that it isn't great - it's so unbalanced constantly, and so many elements are getting buried repeatedly. i love your thematic reason behind how you scoped everything into the mix, honestly. unfortunately, intentions don't matter when it comes to listenability. your statement about submitting a radio edit actually touches on this - we aren't listening to a short snippet of a larger work here, we're listening to a single standalone work. i think that work should be about four minutes long if you cut out the overly repetitive elements, and i think it needs to be much more attentively mixed to balance the instruments regardless of your creative vision around mettaton. last thing i'll say, and it'll sound harsh but i truly don't mean for it to be hurtful: if you're hearing feedback you don't like five years into working on a huge effort, and your response is to really strongly push back, i'd argue that you're too close to it and listening to that advice from the perspective of "i am not objective anymore" would be worthwhile, regardless of your internal feelings about it. i ran into this with the chrono cross album when concerns were raised around mastering elements of several tracks specifically. i disagreed, allowed someone else to master the tracks to get the project out there, and ultimately was convinced that my ears weren't true anymore regarding tracks i'd heard for years. there was a better result after i took an ego check and let someone else be my guide. i encourage you to do that with others who are objective, are talented engineers in their own right, and who haven't heard the track evolve over time. this will allow for nuanced approaches that aren't skewed by history or the initial glitz of the work. that's a lot of statements about why i think it's not the track it should be. one thing i personally and regularly need to keep in check is that the pursuit of perfect shouldn't get in the way of 'pretty good'. this track is objectively 'pretty good', even if you did a lot of stuff that i feel is mistakes. that said, this is not above the bar that i believe OCR holds. i think fixing your mixing so that it's not so overbalanced would be enough to scratch past my line. i think cutting two minutes of repetition would also be enough. the other elements i called out would take a lot more time and it sounds like the artist isn't super into that level of revision. my vote is still a no. it's honestly very close, closer than i've been in a while. but i'm comfortable staying where i was with this vote for now despite it being four months later.

original is a great track. melody is very exciting and catchy. intro's timing is indeed pretty rough, and it does sound lo-fi to the point that i'm not sure if it's intentional. the whistles and choir pad sound great though, that's a great vibe. the next 30 seconds or so continue to feature some rough timings in various instruments, but the underlying idea is great, appropriately epic in scope and realization. the whistle sounds excellent. we get some (overwhelmingly loud) guitars at about 1:03, and then get into what feels like the main body of the arrangement at 1:18 along with a tempo switch. the drums feel pretty bland and the rhythm guitar sounds way too loud, but the guitar tone itself is great, and the saw's tone cuts really well through the mix. there's some extended transition to the B melody on organ, and the guitar parts here sound great (still too loud) and are perfectly timed as compared to the opening. around here i realized i can't hear the bass at all. i'm not sure if it's a result of the instrumentation (ie. guitar chugs are covering it) or just mastering, but it's not obvious if there's anything there. there's a break at 2:16 that is even more obviously out of time since the piano's got drums behind it this time, and the guitars (which are still too loud) come in for a lower-energy section. the chord that you altered at the end of the A melodic material (at 2:47) is wrong here - i liked the altered choice, but it's performed incorrectly here. 3:09 brings in some new material. the drums are more interesting in this section as compared to elsewhere, but are still mostly on autopilot outside of a few fills. there's some fun call and response in the guitar and leads here which is a nice way to mix up the delivery of the melodic material. this kinda just ends and it goes into an acoustic outro with some ocean or rain sfx. the last sustain and chord is not a particularly pleasing choice. this has some really fun ideas! the guitar-driven approach with leads is energetic and exciting, and the whistle-driven elements that are more acoustic sound fun too. the piano parts are just so out of time, however. it's very distracting. the drums throughout are pretty rote, and i really just can't hear the bass. from a mastering perspective, the rhythm guitars are too loud for essentially the entire track. overall i think a redo of most of the quieter sections and maybe a reorganization like what darksim suggests would really benefit the track overall. i agree with him that the last blow-through with the band going full blast is probably the best part of the piece - focusing the arrangement more around that best part would help a ton. NO

aw yeah, that intro is awesome. washy pad into a super-defined bassline and choppy percs. i love the space added there, it adds so much definition to the groove. the melodic parts are intentionally buried for much of the first minute and a half. i like the concept (underground!) but do wish they were just slightly louder at the start of that. impressive breakdown at 1:45 and a huge tempo change. the vocal parts are appropriately ethereal and sliding around in a pleasing way. we get a real lead finally at 2:43 with some more percs - and then it's back to the fat bass groove, with more choppy synths doing the lifting on the melodic side. there's a huge build that again uses tempo to intensify into a big break at 3:25. lots of sfx and a neat, appropriately weird plectral lead brings it back up. more vocals - what a great addition to the piece next to all the obviously synthetic instruments - and tons of rhythmically driven filtro synths to build back up to the bass groove re-entering at 4:39. there's a few more runthroughs of the melodic content with a huge build into an outro. the chord at the end that it ends on is unexpected. what a great track. if you'd have told me before starting that i was going to get into a bass groove that was essentially one note for six minutes i'd have laughed at you. the track sounds awesome. YES

i always loved this original. even the various translations of the track's name are evocative. big washes of sound to start out. i like seeing the game's context inform the remix. the pad washes have some dissonance in them too (sound like maj7 chords?) so that's a fun concept. the melodic content comes in at 0:52 alongside some bass and some more brass in the pads. the eventual string plucks and FM e-piano also are reminiscent of FF7's OST, so again a great pick. there's a shift in the lead instrument at 1:43, and some particularly odd-sounding bass stuff happens right after. i think it's a result of using detuning throughout the soundscape alongside some creatively interpreted chord structures. 2:28 through 2:31 is particularly bad - you can't put the bass on the maj7 if it's that low, which is what it sounds like is happening. i don't think it's a positive, but the rest of the soundscape is really neat. there's a shift at 2:36 to a string-heavy concept, and then subsequently at 3:01 the bass sustains bring in a more aqua-inspired backing, especially with the liquidy arps. the bass here is very strong, almost too much, certainly right on the edge. at 3:52, we finally get some percussion (mostly snaps and a ride cymbal), along side some more intentional bass rhythmic work. the arps continue to be so interesting behind the melodic content, and i still haven't ever really lost the melody this entire time despite all the changing backing parts. there's an extended outro for like 30 seconds and then it's fading into the distance on the descending chord from J-E-N-O-V-A. clever call-out. i really don't like whatever the bass is playing from 2:28 through 2:31. i think it's wrong notes, and that needs to be fixed. but i think that's conditional-worthy as the rest of the track is IMO excellent. the mixing is super bass-heavy and pretty brash considering what it's playing, but i really like the liquidy, burbly synths used throughout, and i think the countermelodic elements really elevate the track. CONDITIONAL (on fixing whatever the heck the bass is playing at 2:28, or at least un-detuning it so it doesn't sound so messy)

intro is quite simple, but not in a bad way. there's some P H A T bass synths coming in at 0:30, and then we get the first real run-through of the melodic content. i don't think this earlier section sounds too thin at all - the space in this realization is great, and allows the very slow, patient melody to have some room to breath. i really liked this section actually. at 1:41, we get some iconic sixteenth-note bass stuff sidechained nicely, and a good driving beat that continues to explore countermelodic material. this plays through and then goes through a key change, and that key change brings in a more heroic, uplifting set of arps alongside it. the ending actually comes a bit soon - i wouldn't have minded a four-bar outro, as there's a ton of energy there at the end - but it's handled in a fine way. this is a slam dunk in my opinion. there's a natural shape to the song, the synths sound great, i love all the space in the first half and the countermelodic content in the second half. nice work. YES

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

hooooo boy, first couple chords are indicative of a bad trip. that intro is really, really weird. i can see myself dismissing it right there if it was just in a random rotation. there's some great resonance in the bass elements after that though, and the altered chords you get from that resonance is neat. the timbre is very thin though. a lot going on that is just so quiet, or is actually not really anything. after the initial bass elements, 1:22's woody clunks in the synths take a while to coalesce into something that's actually ice cappy, but the schmears that layer in around 2:00 are much more helpful. the subsequent time-based res chirps alongside the arp is really a neat concept, and the block chords with no attack are immediately recognizable within the context of the earlier melodic content. 3:15 is heavily distorted and continues the crazy train approach, and it kind of blurves it's way towards the ending fade. this is way more difficult a vote than i expected. it's intensely weird in an r/surrealmemes kind of way and i honestly think it might be a little too far on that side of the curtain. much of what's after 3:00 is only tangentially related to the melodic content in a shapes and colors way, not necessarily because the pitches or rhythms are the same. and then it ends. it takes serious work to sound this strange. i can't imagine anyone wanting to listen this regularly, although of course that's not a requirement. the technical proficiency is obvious and clear throughout, though, and it consistently does reference the source material for >50% of the track. it even has what i'd call a standard theme and variations form, albeit horribly mutilated. this is a pass, but it's probably pretty close to the arthouse 30-minutes-of-balloons-floating-in-a-room is-this-cinema line than i'd want to go very often. YES?

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

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

very epic opening. thematic percussion and a ton of dynamic variation right off the bat, which i love. melody is initially carried by an acoustic plectral instrument - probably classical guitar - which is a tough sell due to the timbral differences between the instrument and the backing parts. but the backing parts and supporting instrumentation are well-fleshed out and sound great. there's a ton of creativity in passing the parts between instrumental parts. there's a tempo change at 1:08, and some more focus to brass and toms here. i can see some hard limiting going on, but it still sounds ok there. there's some neat xylo work behind everything after this, and another big build with the toms and horns through 1:50. i love the repetition at 1:50. after this it drops down to what sounds like the intro's bars for quite a bit. everything after 1:56 is a linear copy from earlier in the piece. this is awesome-sounding, well-realized, and the first 1:56 is great arrangement. everything after it is repeated note for note, though, which means ~56% of the work is repeated. too much copypasta =( honestly, if this ended with just about anything - a major chord, a guitar strum, a blat from a trombone, anything - after the tom fill at 1:56, i'd pass it. as it is, it is way too much repeated stuff. NO

a triple feel for this one is a fun idea. it's very energetic. the kick sounds very mushy and the bass is overlapping it, which doesn't sound good. the melody comes in at 0:30, but it's overshadowed by the rhythmic stutter synth that i think is supposed to be a pad. there's a nice build and we get a new lead synth at 0:56. it's still mushy, but at least i can hear the melodic content from the A second of the original. the lead goes into the mid range under the very loud stutter pad synth, and then i can't hear anything but that. there's a break at 1:52 or so, and that's a nice shift. the stutter synth is still hammering away, but at least we get some new stuff going on. this isn't the B section of the original - i guess we won't get that at all? - but the chord progression is new and different. there's another long build that honestly sounds almost the same as the first one, and then another copy (almost directly, from the sound of it) of the melodic approach used at 0:57. it does this for a while and then ends. there's a neat tech demo here, but ultimately just doesn't...go anywhere. the constant stutter synth throughout, the same lead being used to do the same thing in both melody shout sections, and the mushy mastering all don't make something that stands out. this needs a lot of work in both the arrangement and production arenas before it'd be postable. NO

such an iconic original. initial groove is really solid. tons of space added intentionally, and the really wide slow-attack lead instrument is a great choice. the continuing variance in the backing parts do a great job keeping it moving - for example, transitioning from strings to the guitar arpeggio (with synth arp in there too) at 1:05 is a great touch, and doesn't ever lose touch with the original. the drop into the middle of the melodic content at 1:25 is excellent, and the subsequent looping of the guitar and synth parts also sounds great. there's some additional percussion around 2:02, and that kind of flows forward as the melodic synth gradually gets some more edge. the arrangement continues to introduce new instruments and ideas (like the nice detuned EP at 2:35) while still sticking with what got the track there, and the additive nature of the progression is enjoyable. the ending is a bit of a letdown as it's so sudden, but that's essentially my only arrangement complaint. i'm pretty sure there's never a complete statement of the melodic content throughout despite it constantly referencing snippets of the original, and that's a great job both being patient with your track and also being stingy with how much of a super-iconic melody line you lay out at any one time. the track sounds excellent throughout and i didn't have any complaints about the mastering. this is an excellent track. nice job. YES

the clear writeup with source breakdown is helpful. thanks for the technical details. intro percussion is heavily effected, as is the initial synth work. heavy emphasis on stutters is great and drives the piece forward. the conversion to a piece that's essentially in one (not truly a waltz, waltzes traditionally emphasize 1 and 3 and this is more 1 and 2, still interesting) is a great choice for the track. there is a ton of movement on every part as expected based on description. the lead instrument at 1:15 sounds distressingly out of time initially, and doesn't ever really settle into the beat until halfway through the section. it indeed repeats a second time, but there's extra flourishes in here and the activity on each synth is notably different this time around, likely due to what michael mentioned about mapping his LFOs externally. the part at 2:30 is less audibly out of time without the beat under it, and the transition to just the kalimba is really neat. i wish the final chord could sustain more but that's the instrument. i really didn't care for the timing issues around 1:15-1:25, but aside from that this is a fascinating approach to the original. taking something that sounds so medieval and transferring it into an electronic version of a similarly old style is great juxtaposition. i definitely believe you hit your goal with this one. YES

hard to not hear Pillar of Salt when i hear this original. some old-school synth sounds in this track. the hats and the 303 bass at about 1:25 or so are super retro and i love it. the subsequent stutter in the lead at 1:34 was perfect. around this point i noticed that there's no actual pads in the track - talk about progressive, that's a long time for additive arrangement - but there's some background synth work right after this so that's great. there's a 'drop' at about 2:40 that functions as a great palate cleanser and allows some new synths to come in. i liked the shift a lot as a method to drive the track forward. that said, around the 4:00 point i again was getting ready to hear something else. there's a shift at 4:28 towards more sustained synths which was a nice contrast to what we've seen to this point. there's a recap with the same three over two pattern to a drop that leads to the outro, which is extended as expected for a track that's as patient as this one is. the actual end (the reversed filtered gong) is a little weird, but it's a fine way to cut off the ending vs. just a kick/snare combo like you'd normally see. this is a fun track to listen to. it doesn't go anywhere fast, but it's nice work with synths and sounds great when really pushed up volume-wise. nice work. YES

intro is still comically quiet. should be boosted by 5-8db at least. initial presentation is enjoyable. i like the layering of the lead guitar with flute. 1:01 is certainly dense but didn't feel overly so to me (take that with a grain of salt, i like music that is absolutely slammed with content). the drums especially feel a lot cleaner in this version - the snare is much snappier, and the kick is more presence vs. tone, without losing it completely. nice work there. i do still think there's too much doubling in the orchestra parts, but it's more listenable this time, so it's not as bad. the choir at 3:36 is still hard to hear - there's more EQing that could be done there, and it definitely could have been louder, but it gets the idea across, and is more approachable this time around. the gutteral part is also a lot easier to hear this time around, although i still can't really make it out (could be louder, also i'm terrible at words with complex backgrounds). there's some significant panning elements which may be part of why it's hard to put together. the building action at 5:25 into 5:23 is probably my favorite part of the piece. still a lot of layering, but the huge band sound alongside the rock set sounds great. the sustains covering everything up here are fixes, as is bringing back the drums relative to the lead. this is a great arrangement. there's some production questions but overall this is tons cleaner than before. i'm comfortable saying this is over the bar now. it's certainly still quiet overall, but it's a great track that's fun to listen to. nice job taking criticism and improving the overall package. YES

i think this probably needs a new name. also, the music sounds more like a credits theme than a main theme, i think. or maybe that's just me? intro is indeed verby - the noise on that swooshy pad that's used a lot doesn't help either. we don't really get the initial melodic material until probably 0:50 or so, but the rest of the intro is interesting enough that i didn't mind. the auto-panning lead used for the initial melodic material is a little offputting for me, and the hard-panned synths in the left ear at 1:24 are both pretty loud and conflict directly with the head at that point as well. this entire melodic section feels very much like the original, with only a little that's not in the original. i agree that there's a direct copypasta in here as well which isn't a great look when it's also not really perfect. there's a nice break at about 2:30 that is well-deserved after all that pasta. the glide leads are neat and a fun idea. the more rhythmic approach here also serves to make for a more unique soundscape to the more generic vibe of the first two minutes. the synth solo here is fine. there's another, bigger break at 3:32 which is an even more significant vibe check, and sounds great. the rhythmic piano and half-time drums here together sound great, and it's nice hearing the bass do something other than octaves as well. the panning is pretty significant again, but it's not a huge issue. there's a big hit at 4:36, and it feels like it's heading to an ending. stylistically, though, i get why you did a further outro, but i think it probably was done at 4:59 and the rest is kind of a waste of what could have been used earlier in the track. it works, though, i certainly don't mind it as much as it seems MW did. overall, your synth selection was good, the feel of the track is good despite being hand-played, and the overall approach sounds solid. i have no issues around arrangement or mastering. this is a fun track. YES

some real meaty intro work. the heavily verbed fm pads sound great, and that intro synth is real nasty. there's a real funky arp that comes in at 0:47 that's super aggressively loud - maybe too loud - and then some drums that build in around the one minute mark. there's some leads that are in at 1:12, with another shift in timbre. throughout this entire first minute or so i've really appreciated the space in between some of the repeated tones - gives it a really hard, robotic feel. there's another big build into 1:48, and we hear some more similar stuff to what we heard prior to that in different voicings. there's more of the melodic material in a hornet lead that falls off hard after 2:25. we get another big FM-y build of noise and a hard falloff at 2:48 with glitchy effects, and this progresses to an outro. my one complaint in the arrangement is we never get a big blow through the melodic material with both a meaty, heavy bass instrument playing and the big higher synths going at it. it feels like we get two parts to the whole but never hear them combined. that said, what's here is a fun arrangement that doesn't overstay its welcome. the mastering is big but doesn't feel too loud (outside the initial presentation of the big FM arp at 0:47) and doesn't ever feel crunchy unintentionally. nice work. YES

never finished FFV myself, but there are a ton of fun elements in it, and the music stands out throughout. intro features some instruments that are in different spaces, from the sound of it. verb and volumes are inconsistent. strings at 0:33 sound bad even if they're not next to live instruments - like PS2 bad. flute performance is great as well as the oboe performance, with some pitch disparities here and there. the disparity between the glock and vibes (and audible distance/room tones) is significant and sounds not good at all - the glock is just lacking any room presence and sounds like it's right in front. i don't get the care taken with other instruments and then plopping it in with no verb whatsoever. there's a nice descending line passed around for the ending. this is not exciting but it's competent despite my criticisms. it's straightforward without a lot from an arrangement perspective that wasn't in the original, but it executes and sounds nice if you're a fan of RET's music. I GUESS

catchy opening, roughly what was expected but well-done. agree it's a messy mastering job that felt quite drum heavy to me. there's a nice break at 0:57 and we're quickly back to the band sound. the solo brass samples are pretty rough and obviously fake, but the full band tones sound a lot better, and the backing parts for the solo were nice. a quick break, another shout chorus, and it's already over at under 2:20. it doesn't sound clean, but it's a fun track that doesn't overstay. i'm good with this. YES

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

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

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