prophetik music

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

the initial hit of noodly synth, EP, filtered drums, and lo-fi strings is a great sound. there's a great groove to what the drums are doing and the vibe is really nice. there's a drop at 1:19 and it picks back up at 1:30 with a slick synth solo. it's a touch out of time here and there but sounds great - i especially like the lfo on the lead tone to keep it moving. the subsequent bridge section is also great and functions well as a way to mix it up without drastically changing the soundtrack. there's a recap of the B section of the initial lead for the last 20 seconds or so, and then a (somewhat sudden) ending and fade. overall i think this sounds great! there's a lot of care taken with the drums to keep them relevant and not on autopilot throughout. the synth leads are carefully chosen and the solo is great. the two tracks go very well together as well. i'd have liked to hear more of a prepared ending, but what's here is sufficient. nice work. YES

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

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

nice initial hit. i appreciate the patience in the build - you've got a 7+ minute palette, using all of it is definitely the right choice. the initial hit at 0:55 where the bass comes in feels great, and the fat, short snare sounds great alongside it. we start to get more obvious theme correlations around 1:30, and there's a great drop and extended exploration before it really starts to build hard into the complete picture. again, the patience is just very good. i didn't expect the liquidy chorus for a quarter of the track, but it was a fun shift and helped keep the half-time feel going alongside the synthy strings and distant keys. when the wide arpy lead comes in after the 4 minute mark, you really get the feel that it's time to buckle in because now you're going to be in a ride to the finish. i loved the anticipation this built. 4:45 is a great payoff, and getting the extended outro from 6:07 onward was even better since i figured we were going to be in a downswing after the payoff finally had hit. the track is mastered effectively and sounds great. it features source throughout and handles it in a new but recognizable fashion. excellent work - this is a track i'll definitely be coming back to. YES

interesting original choices. intro is very ethereal, nice work making a vibe. the bell synth that comes in around 0:30 is a little square to fit into that. norfair's initial brass hit is actually to me pretty fitting in style, and i really dig the super-distorted bass synth, but the brass quickly sounds bad once it's more than a initial color choice. by around 2:15, there's some noodling and it kind of hasn't progressed. there's some changes at 2:15, but i'd argue that they're not positive changes - it's just weirder, and less rooted in the original content, and not really forming a cohesive whole. i don't mind the idea of competing time signatures, but your mastering is too muddy to make it clear if that's what's supposed to be going on. the guitar doubling the lead is neat intiially, but at 3:20 everything is just noise. it's way too much simultaneously. luckily you back off right away. the brass come back in at 3:45 or so and that kind of just...autopilots to the bookend sample and it's done? again, a weird progression. this one's interesting. it's hard pointing to one specific thing as "this is why it's a NO". combining the very over-busy palette with dull mastering, no cohesive overall structure, and repetitive not-great synth choices is tough and definitely below the bar, though. fixing any number of these would improve it a lot. NO

i love the pkmn blue/red soundtrack but it sounds so bad on youtube. always liked this original though. neat intro. there's a ton of space given the chords and synths in the beginning and it really sounds great. the melodic content actually comes in at 0:40. huge amount of sound, intentionally loud and weird, and it sounds great. the piano's a bit quiet, but honestly the intense buzz and strangeness is more the point. there's a monster build that hits on a absolutely mega-ballsy long-attack synth drop at 1:20 that is easily the best thing i've heard in two months. i literally made the ooh yeah face when it hit. i love the lead synth in this section too, it's got just enough envelope manipulation to really make it feel different. there's another big drop and build at 1:48, with a reduced version of the melody before the swell comes in. the build at 1:55 particularly sounded great, i love the repeated aggressive synth pattern especially after the vox clips come in again. nice bait and switch on the hit at 2:52 - another short fill into the original's arpeggio as the lead instrument, and then we're into a big falloff for the ending. mastering sounds great, track is awesome. easy vote. OOH YEAH

interesting concept. intro is weird. i don't get the gap in timing at all, and the significant spacing in the melodic instrument comes across as stilted due to skill vs. being an intentional choice. the main melodic content comes in at 0:20, and it doesn't sound good at all. the bass is very messy and dull-sounding, the kit doesn't seem to be in the same room as everything else, and the intentionally stilted lead just sounds so bad. it isn't enjoyable to listen to at all. the wide-swelling pads don't compliment the dull bass either. even looking at this from a vaporwave/VHS pop perspective, this doesn't sound great. larry hit on some of the really empty sections and i agree they're just kinda existing and navigating the melodic material on autopilot. there's a countermelody in the background at 1:40 that's both low and playing conflicting notes, which is a sure way to make something sound wrong without actually sounding intentional or purposefully weird. i am going to be very honest - i don't like any synth choice in this entire track, even if it's mastered correctly and doing something more unique and Lucasy than just blowing through the melodic material in order. the lead's wide attack and subsequent sustain tones are not particularly enjoyable to listen to, and combined with the super-wide buzzy pad and the dull bass just sound strange. i can dig that you found a new way to get things going, and that you're working with new tools to get interesting results. my suggestion is to take this back to the drawing board and be more intentional about every element. the arrangement is pretty straightforward - find some ways to make it yours. the synths are hard to listen to - find ways to make them interesting without being grating. the mastering is low-heavy, muddy, and does not enhance the sounds of your synths - add some sidechaining and EQ to reduce the mud in the bass, and notch down some of the wide, freq-rich synths via filtering and EQ to remove the noise that's getting in the way. NO

ok, neat idea. the initial beat is a fun sound. the string stabs were stylistically appropriate and sit well next to the sitar's buzziness. melody comes in at 0:32, and while i think the accordion is a clever idea, the natural lack of a focused tone made it harder to really hear the melody. the chord adjustments done here though are great, and would have been further emphasized with an actual bass (the bass instrument feels like it should be an octave down). the drums also are neat initially but get stale fast, with little to no shifts. this section overall is fun to listen to, if overall light on arrangement. there's a hard shift at like 1:28, which i don't mind (although the transition meanders). i agree though that it just doesn't tie to the original hardly at all, and then it just ends. sounds like you submitted something that's half done. at the least this needs a recap to tie it together more smoothly, and then a real ending. i think i like this more than my fellow judges, but this just ain't there yet. NO

intro's a fun idea. a bit bright, tone down the 2-3k range and it'll feel duller like you'd expect. agree with the chimps that this could use a bit of record/needle noise or something similar. 0:44's beat coming in was an immediate head-bobber. love it. agree the snare's really loud and kind of not something i want to listen to a lot, but i love the quant on the drums and the groove from it. guitar sounds great here, and also at 1:28 when we get to the break. the fat kick next to everything else reminded me of the Pyre soundtrack, specifically the travel themes. a whistly lead comes in at 1:48 that i didn't like much at all. it was very loud and needed some action on it (volume changes, vibrato, pitch-bending, etc) to keep it interesting. the oboe layered with glass beads after that was a neat idea. this transitions (suddenly) into another great guitar section, this one a solo. the heavy distortion tone on the guitar contrasted negatively with the backing EP. something more aggressive as your chord instrument there would have helped keep the energy up. the subsequent string stabs were better, even though i heard them earlier and didn't think much at the time. the last minute or so is on auto-pilot, which was disappointing. would have liked to hear more melodic content between 3:30 and 3:52. the outro is, as MW said, disappointing. i think this is over the bar. mastering is good enough, the arrangement is fun and has some great solos, and the overall execution is more than competent. i agree with chimpa that there's a lot of little nags which are disappointing, but don't think they're holding this down enough to say no. YES

i didn't vote on the original in time, but was batsignaled in a vote so i offered a bunch of commentary around the harmonic content and the approach. 6dba headroom, in a negative way. this track needs volumetric expansion, or a very light limiter and compression to balance the dba without affecting the timbre of the instrumentation. there still does not appear to be any true mastering on the track, and a lack of polish/sparkle does not do this track benefits. i remembered this as soon as i heard that bass synth. there's some interesting electrical/glitchy fx on the track overall, and i like those parts. there's what i believe is added block chords at 2:15, which adds a ton of body to the piece but also stands out as feel more organic vs. the very synthetic feel of the bass and added fx/pads. there's some timing elements here too that don't feel right, like at 2:52, 3:04, and elsewhere. this is an interesting one. like kris, i don't feel this has enough going on to really comprise a remix. but, similarly, i think Death on the Snowfield is an excellent remix, and that track's highlight is also its simplicity. i believe there's two differences here. the first is that the instrumentation in DotS (acoustic guitar, filtered piano, some synths) fits together much more comfortably than the burble bass synth and the lead piano here, since they're obviously different timbres where as the bass synth and piano here feel very similar and so can be hard to tell apart. the second is that DotS does a better job creating an overall feel and progressing through that in a traditional song 'shape' - starts small, builds, comes back down - than this one does. i think this is a fundamental issue that may require significant rewrite to get around. the natural progression of this remix does not build energy (or quiet resolve) throughout, but instead is fairly flat until 2:15, and then loses that and goes back to the flat by 2:35. the lack of overall shaping hurts the track. you could resolve this through layering new synths or instruments progressively/additively throughout, and then tailing off, or you could handle this via what the piano's doing and not add new material. i think if you do the latter, you have to do some very nuanced filtering to ensure it doesn't leave the beautifully dirty vibe you've got initially in the instrument. i found it really hard to delineate a single thing as to why this isn't 'enough'. i don't feel that the arrangement is significant enough to carry it past the fundamental composition issue i have with the song's bones. so unfortunately i'm still on the NO side of the fence. a song this simple requires perfect execution to be great. for every Galaxy Map from Mass Effect, you've got a hundred less memorable phases from Steve Reich. identifying what makes a minimalistic track truly memorable and focusing on those elements can only help you here. NO

love the concept. and the original is nuts, i'd never have guessed this was from a mario game. the inspiration for the track is immediately recognizable - the beautiful strings fading in, the wall of latin text, the groove with guitar and synths underpinning it all remind me immediately of ES Posthumus. the groove on the drums is especially great. the choir moves a touch slow essentially the entire piece, which i'm not a huge fan of, but the adaptation is great and the execution is surprisingly effective. there's a big break at 2:22, with some ping-ponged autotuned singing - another ESP inspiration that admittedly didn't do it for me. around 3:00 we get another repetition of the 'chorus' section of the piece. i know ESP tends to do a lot of repetitive tracks with tons of copy/paste, but i'd have liked something to mix this up a bit. maybe different orchestration or instrumentation to keep this part unique. another break at 3:45 and a slick guitar solo. love the extra distortion on the verb, it sounds really great. the last 30 seconds is a good outro that serves to wrap the track nicely. i agree with the previous judges that it's not mastered as crisp as i'd like. it still sounds solid though so i'm definitely on board with a positive vote here. YES

never heard this original, it's a neat idea. there's a lot of fun pieces to this one. the bass has a nice squelchiness to it that shows up sometimes, and it's playing fun stuff. the honky horn synths are a really neat tone, and i like what they're playing. i usually hate sfx in remixes, and the uses of these are both rhythmically appropriate and add rather than detract from the remix. the drums are fast-paced and fun initially, too. ultimately, though, this is as MW says - it's a ton of copy/paste, and a lot of it feels on auto-pilot. beyond that, i thought that nothing really felt like it was in the same place. the bass, percussion, drums, lead synth, sfx, and honky horn synth all feel like they're in totally different places in the mix. they're not balanced and verbed and EQ'd such that they feel cohesive. there is a really neat tech demo here. i think it'd be really positive to spend some time making a more cohesive whole, with drums that are less looped and have more fills and blurbs to help them feel less repetitive, and less copy/paste overall. NO

hey, this is really fun! the original's vibe translated really easily to this arrangement. ultimately most of the arrangement felt like the original to the point i needed to A/B it, and i think that the first minute is mostly in line with the original, with a solo break and some goofiness during the second minute until a break at 2:02. there's an extra-frantic ending and that's that. ultimately, the mastering on this track is really poor. it's hard to hear anything, really, and there's no EQ i can hear on the drums at all where they're desperately needed. it's very dense as shown by the freq plot - tons of sub-40hz content, tons of stuff between 100-200hz, and essentially nothinig past 2khz, which is why it sounds so dull. a quick mastering pass could work wonders with this! right now i don't think it passes our mastering bar, but it's a fun track that absolutely would have a home here once it's gone through that. NO

i don't mind the intro. reminds me of some of the ways that prog bands mess with time in intros. this is a hip arrangement! i really dig the additive intro, and how the melody is getting passed around a lot. there's some small but meaningful updates to the melodic line - the little flips into notes and triplets added really make a huge difference. i also appreciate how much space there is in the implementation - lots of chopped synths, the drums are crisp. the layering of the Athletic theme with the immediately-recognizable underworld theme is great. the ending is kind of nonexistent - this is a loop, right? - but it doesn't take away from a good overall package. it's short but fun. wish it was longer! i just wanted to keep listening. easy vote YES

very short track. neat intro, though, i like the synth arpeggio especially. guitar is played nice. there's not a lot of arrangement when it comes in initially, as it's just playing through the theme, but there's some fun stuff earlier that was clearly influenced by the original. the solo is great but doesn't really reference the original at all, and it goes into a comp section at the end that just kind of ends (i honestly though the JENOVA arpeggio at the end was going to a new part and was surprised when it ended). there's not a preponderance of source here, unfortunately, so it doesn't meet our submission standards for what a remix should consist of. there is a hard limiter on this that sounds kind of weird, a lo-fi crunchiness. other than that, i think it is pretty great to listen to. unfortunately the arrangement doesn't meet our criteria of being >50% source (arranged or otherwise). too bad! i'd love to hear this extended with more source in it, especially if it was arranged with some alternate chords, time signatures, or other concepts. NO

rubber stamping this. some notes about the piano. there is a lot of heavy left-hand blocks (the bottom of your chords). avoid doing 1-5-1 blocks in the left hand in general, as that tends to sound very heavy and dense. beyond that, it's obvious it's either heavily quantized to be rigid, or it's clicked in. i'd suggest adding some level of nuance to the more repetitive parts to help it not feel so rigid. variances in volume are the best way to do this, and some more flex in faster runs helps too. the strings throughout sound pretty fake. there's also not really much room verb applied to them, as opposed to the piano which has tons of verb, so they sound extra exposed. the instrumentation is holding this back. less mechanical-feeling, less heavy blocks, less repeated notes at the same velocity, etc. NO

initial fade-in is not my favorite, but the initial hit of everything sounds great, and i like the timbale fill. there's a solid minute before the melody really hits, and the entire build to that is nicely done. the first presentation of melodic content survives the transition to 4/4 fairly well, albeit with some significant off-beat stuff in the melody which initially is somewhat confusing until you hear it with a beat. there's some squiggly stuff in the chord structure around 2:00 that i think is primarily due to long fades on synths. the body of the piece gets pretty muddy there too. in fact, i'd say that about 2:00 through 2:25 is a bit of a bear trap, there's not much coming out that's not somewhat mangled by all the long delays and chord shifts. the lead synth literally never stops playing notes, so maybe giving it a chance to breathe once and a while would be good. it's also so loud that even the tail of notes is louder than the pads and some of the kit, so it's hard to really hear what's going on. at about 2:47 it really falls off the rails. it's just similar-sounding synths in different octaves, noodling and doing some really strange stuff, there's no phrasing or cohesive structure like there was in the intro, and then it fades out. the basic idea is neat, and sounds pretty good. the initial presentation of the build is cool. the first run-through of the melody is a bit weird timing-wise, like i said, but sounds good. after that it gets less and less cohesive. i'm all about stretching boundaries, but EDM's got four on the floor in 4 or 8 bar sections for a reason - the consistency helps tie the work together. there is essentially no phrasing after about the two minute mark here outside of one or two fills, and it just wiggles around until it fades out. i don't think this is cohesive enough. give me some more consistently-phrased melodic content with fills that are intentional, and fewer run-on phrases. toning down the tail length on the lead's verb and reducing the overall volume would help a lot too. NO

beautiful registration on the initial melodic intro. i love the clarity of that tone selection. similarly, beautiful job passing the little fanfares between hands around the 1:00 mark to about 1:30. 1:31 gives us the biggest hit of organ, but the immediate contrast provided by the following sections was more meaningful in that light. counterpoint around the melodic material at 1:56 was also nice. the continual approach to play the initial melodic riff with nothing else there is so fitting given the context of the game. the continued use of pedals to offset and make unsure the chords above them is a neat concept as well. whatever registration you're using at 3:05 is neat specifically because of the additional amount of air tone you're getting. i can't tell if it's intentional or not but it's a very organic choice. the pedal arpeggios at 3:43 are neat since they give the impression of something larger than yourself moving in the background, and allow a much more introspective and patient representation of the melody than you'd be able to get otherwise. i'm at almost 5 minutes and i don't feel it's dragged much at all. if i'm not mistaken, the chord structure used at this section of the arrangement reflects what you did at the beginning, yes? i wouldn't have minded some more interpretation here since it's similar registration for the left hand. i also didn't care for the lead that intro'd at 5:29 - i like the concept, but it's just too strong compared to the rest of the parts - maybe something more on the string spectrum? the following use of it at 6:35ish was much more enjoyable. around 7 minutes and i'm starting to notice the duration of the work. the last few minutes have felt more homogenous than i think you intended. right on cue, though, there's some variance especially in the pedal bass and chord structures and tempi (did your foot slip at 7:15 or is that just room resonance?), which is overdue but welcome. the settling down towards the final chord is great, just so patient and fulfilling. the voicing on said chord (this might be my headphones) is a little fifth-dominant and i don't hear the fundamental as much as i'd hoped, but it's still a solid resolution. i agree with LT that the track did feel somewhat source-light on first pass. overall i think this is a great addition to the community. i think this isn't as intentional, integrated, or in-depth as your last arrangement was, but i still am enjoying it a lot. YES

great original! love the vibe. intro is fun, and the initial hit is a big band sound that's great. the leads feel integrated and i had no issue hearing what was background vs. lead. i especially liked the little bit of glide on the lead, a little nuance that felt great. the break at 1:13 is welcome and well-handled. i liked the verb of the main band sound tailing into a wind sfx, that's a nice touch. half-time at 1:36 was a nice variance. i heard the arp that MW was talking about, but i'd argue that those levels were intentional - it's not supposed to be a big thing, just a filling synth. i actually liked the volumization of that ultimately. there's a build into one last blow at 2:20, and an extended outro with some string machines and pads. production-wise, yeah, it's loud! but i really appreciated how big and aggressive the mastering was. i love the verve this gives the track. unlike MW, i never lost track of the melodic line or felt it was in the wrong place in the mix. kudos to the arranger as well to not put in three or four instances of the (awesome) full band playing the melody at the end - never quite giving us enough of the payoff is a great way to keep listeners coming back. this is great. excellent work. YES

intro sounds good. there's a simplified version of the melody, and then it cuts to the initial melodic content at 0:41. there's a no-bass playthrough of the melodic content, and then everything's together at 1:08 - over half the track has been essentially intro content. the play-through of the melody with everything going is fine, and there's some new stuff at 1:35, which is welcome (but doesn't seem to have the same reverb and room presence as the rest of the track). the melody, bass, and drums are all copypasta from 1:08 though. then the track very suddenly ends at not quite 2:10 in duration. a few thoughts: this is a very, very short track. a true breakdown section where the beat is totally different, the synths change, and the approach changes would be well-suited to breaking up the track and providing dynamic contrast. the synth lead is fine initially, but not changing it the entire track is tiresome. mixing that up or layering in additional (more distinct, less fuzzy) leads would help a lot. this is a short melodic snippet. there's room for transitions, new chords, and new interpretations of the melody without adding too much bulk to the track. the arrangement on this one holds it back a lot. it's essentially half intro and half repeated copypasta. adding in a lot more variation to your counterpoint and synth work would help a ton. NO

about 3db headroom, artificially from the looks of it. neat initial hit at 0:10. the bass is pretty obviously fake right away and the quant on the drums feels really rigid, but the keys feel great right away. brass comes in at 1:21, and it sounds great as well. the rhythmic echoes in the rhodes behind the brass stuff is a great accent. the piece plods some from 1:50 to about 3:00, since the guitar, bass, and drums mostly do the same thing the whole time, but adding in some brass stabs helps. the abrupt transition at 3:00 is unsupported, but it's good to get away from the first several minutes since they were pretty repetitious. there's some really fun sound design in the last minute, although most of it is an extended fade. this is a neat idea and executed competently. i'm not as effusive as emu but i think this is a pass. YES

there is a ton of clipping reported by my daw, although it's not immediately audible. this is has a hip vibe and feels great initially. the copypasta is not good since it's like 1/5th of the track length that's repeated. the solo break at 1:11 is dope, and it goes back to the main theme well. the ending is kind of blah. ultimately, the nice solo break doesn't cover that there's too much here that's essentially the original transcribed. there's not enough 'transformative arrangement' to pass. if it was longer and the remainder wasn't the first minute, i'd be good, but as-is, it's too little System Glow and too much Hirasawa. NO

this is a really insightful idea that i've never considered. i recognized the consistent flex of time but didn't really intuit how much it mattered until i'm thinking about it now.

very loud intro and overall mastering. there's not really any volume variance here. the reedy bass instrument is neat, but is quite loud and covers up a lot of some of the fun nuanced background parts. it's actually the loudest thing throughout the entire track. i think that the balance is misprioritized. there's a break at 1:55 that is welcome, but the bass arp is just as loud as before so it's even more in the forefront. it's a neat synth but isn't saying stuff that's that important. around here i realized just how repetitive the first two-thirds of the track was, as the break was just what was needed. i am really liking the bosh beat 3+3+2 vibe that this has going on throughout. it's a catchy feel and helps drive the arrangement forward. i also like the various flutey synths and how they're used - they're just very quiet. the lack of an ending is disappointing at best. i'm sounding pretty critical, but i do enjoy the track and what you've done with it. i think it's over the bar but could have been a much better overall track with some more sensitive mastering and variation in what worked in the last third. YES