prophetik music

i love this original. one of the first MMX tracks i ever arranged. interesting opening idea. after that it's a cover for minutes (plural). it's not even different synths, and it's mastered worse with the heavy verb exacerbating volumization issues and a heavy focus on the pads in the background over the stuff in front. the other Js say what's needed to be said beyond here. i'll note that, once you add some more personalization and arrangement to this that isn't just realizing the original song, i'd suggest spending time in the workshop getting feedback. hearing others opinions on your work can only long-term benefit you - even if those opinions are bad or flat-out wrong, it helps train your inner ear for how others hear your music. i'd highly encourage you to put this in the workshop and get some other perspectives on it once you've addressed some of the things mentioned above. edit: as a note, i was rejected thirteen times before getting a track through the panel (my mixes before that were direct posts). most of this was because i didn't care what others thought about my music and figured i was the best perspective on it. it's...not a great way to make music! ? NO

i voted NO on the original submission after a lot of deliberation. i complained about the dense mastering, too-tight arrangement that didn't allow sections to really develop and breathe, and a missing ending. this has a real 2001 OCR vibe to it. the fat squelchy bass, the kick with little attack and super-verbed square, the nearly-static-sounding hats, and the synth guitar and vox pad all are super early FL sounding to me, in a nostalgic way. i still think the big ensemble parts sound really too dense. there's a ton of sub-40hz content in the mix and a big peak at 70hz, interestingly enough. i can't point to one thing that makes it feel so dense, but i think at least turning down the vox pad a bit and massaging the kick tone some will help lighten up the tone. the arrangement has a lot of noodling and space added which i liked a lot. i think the drums are pretty rote outside the fills, but the additional attention paid to making the leads both sound more interesting and say more interesting things shows through. there's a functional ending now too which is good. i think that this is still held back by the mastering, unfortunately. i don't know that i can offer a ton of commentary about how to fix it specifically - i'll leave that up to some of the other Js - but it just still sounds so dense despite there being obvious effort to handle the drums especially. NO

oh, i love the intro. feels a lot like a few of OA's past remixes. 0:21 when everything comes in, the chugs are initially too loud. giving it some stereo depth might help keep it present without making it overwhelmingly loud. in later sections (like at 0:46) it's not quite as bad, so maybe some timing-specific volumization is all you need. i also wouldn't mind some more doubling to give it more depth. for the drums, the snare is overall really loud, has a lot of drum sound, and isn't quite as snappy as i'd expect to hear for the style, and the kick especially has way too much high beater sound and not enough sub presence or even lower beater tone. some significant and intentional EQing on both the snare and kick will give them much more body without requiring them to be the only thing in the middle of the mix. the bass's attacks are essentially inaudible as well, although the presence is there. there's a decent break around 1:26, a really dramatic break at 1:46, and the machine-gun snare fill into a final blow to end it on a tape stop. it's barely 2 minutes. from an arrangement perspective, it's not long enough to do what you want. there needs to be another 30 seconds to give you the time to tape together some of your ideas into a coherent whole. one thing that can help with that would be more intentionality regarding personalizing the melodic line. even adding harmony on a last blow-through of the melody would add a ton. i'm not in either MW or LT's camps - i think that there isn't much arrangement here outside of the silliness in the last third, but i also don't think what has been done is too little to measure. you've done a lot to adapt it to the style, and really it just needs some more Treyt to really put a stamp on it. so, to recap - spend some time broadening and volumizing your rhythm guitar parts and EQing your kick and snare, for starters. i would also look at your leads and see about adding more personal touches to the overall arrangement. in a very short piece like this, even altering a few chords on one melody goes a long way. consider adding a solo break or some other expansion to the existing arrangement to give it more meat. NO

love the fretless bass in the original. that's a fun entrance. MW called out the fanfare audio clip, so i'll just reinforce that. this is a fun idea. the original had a lot forward direction, so this is a natural translation to add drums and bright synths. overall there is a lot of 'noise' in the track, mostly added by mid-range synths and pads that need less reverb and more EQ work to make them fit. limiting the ocean drone sound will help a lot with that. the drums are very static (although the initial loop is fun), and need more variety to keep them interesting. the arrangement is also very conservative - there needs to be more variety to what you're presenting. you go there a bit around 2:10, but there needs to be more Karim and less original composer in this. this is neat, but it needs a lot of workshopping to pass. NO

intro is a fanfare through the chords, with some immediately glitchy/riffy melodic material. the drums come on at 0:33 and as MW said, the snare's really loud. the mix goes straight through the initial descending melodic line straight out of the track, but then adds more harmony and runs around the one minute mark. there's some noodling and arpeggiation to drive it forward, and then more of the glitchy stuff at about 1:30. there's a ritard at 1:42 and break, and we're in a rhythmically complex section that goes through the descending melodic material using the attack of the synths to keep the drive going. there's a recap of the initial fanfare at 2:22, and the track uses this as an outro. there's a lot of complexity added here. i don't feel like this kind of 8.5-bit approach really touches some of the chiptune tracks that other big name artists have put out - volumization is critical for this type of track and the balance isn't really there throughout - but i think the arrangement is interpretive enough, and the lead choices sound fine. i feel like megalovania's excellent melody carries this more than the remixer's work, but what's here is just over the bar in my opinion. YES (megaloborderline)

what an interesting idea. initial presentation is clearly the original with some drums. the lead is kinda iffy here to me. the detuning LFO is a little slow for me. 0:55 starts to introduce some more meat to the drums and the hit at 1:06 finally gives us some bass. the audio sausage really hits at 1:13 and is a fun adaptation of the melodic content. the mix feels slightly empty in the middle ground between the bass and leads and this does persist for most of the track. there's some chippy arp stuff around 2:10 and we hit our first break at about 2:23. melodic content is still clear here. there's an extended build to a new feel with some fat square basses hitting at 3:02. this also feels empty in the middle - there's not much i can hear that's not the bass/drums or the lead. there's a drop and a hit at 3:30, and this isn't as clearly based in the original as the rest of the material. This is more motivic in approach, but we get back to the melodic content again closer to 4:00. the outro is extended and kind of blah. i found myself expecting the track to end almost a minute before it did. i agree that this track as a whole has some structural choices demonstrated that felt weird. it's a bunch of different ideas that are implemented effectively, but i never said "wow, this is the sound i was really waiting for". there's always a missing pad, or the drums sound a bit fudgy, or the melody doesn't make sense as much. i also think not changing up the leads at least a little bit throughout was a mistake - even pendulum will change octaves for their leads or filter them occasionally to mix it up. there's not many examples of that here. all that said - the track overall is produced and mastered very well. everything's clear that should be, even when things get glitchy and weird. and the arrangement itself is great, going all over the place and exploring a lot of stuff that the original doesn't even touch. so that's neat. overall i think this passes. i just with there was more body to the big hits in it. YES

big sfx initially and the aforementioned pads. drums come in at 0:30 and remind me a lot of something off of the Pyre soundtrack with the laid-back feel combined with plectral stuff and a slidey synth lead. the string pad doesn't sound very strong, i can agree with that. the drums are on autopilot for a while until maybe 1:35 with a few tom fills. this loops through the melodic line twice. there's a change-up in the drums and bassline at 1:57. at this point it's been two minutes of mostly the same synth tone doing the same thing for leads, the same string pads copied through a few sets of chords, the same arpeggiated synth doing the same thing, and one of two sets of drum grooves that were mostly the same throughout. Then it ends with some more sfx. i would argue that LT's quoting of the standards around arrangement are what sinks this, not passes it. there is a lot of repetition here in the backing parts. there's little variation from the initial instrumentation, dynamics, tempo, vibe, and direction of the work throughout the entire 2:30 duration. i think this has a neat idea. the initial drum groove is nice, i like the obviously artificial lead next to the plectral and string elements and realistic drums, and i thought the bass groove was good too. it just didn't go anywhere after that, and it needs to. adding your own elements to the lead part, changing up the string pad in the background or updating the writing (especially rhythmically, it's just whole notes for 150 seconds), passing around the plucked part or changing how it's being implemented...there's a lot of easy stuff that's not even really reliant on new instrumentation or complex theory that can be done here. as it is, i think the arrangement is not transformative, but rather pretty limited. NO

never heard of the original, it's fun. intro features some sfx and some fun eastern elements blended with synths. the first big chord shift at 0:52 was really nice. there's a bit of a break at 1:17, and we get some nice stylized guzheng echoing the earlier plucked synths. the addition of taikos at 1:59 is nice, but there's a lot of compression occurring there when the lower taiko gets hit, and it's very distracting given how clear the production up until then has been. there's a break and a big chillsteppy hit at 2:55. the heavy sidechaining here is absolutely a stylistic thing - this is every single downtempo track i've heard in the last 5 years. ducking even the melodic content behind the kick is something i've heard a lot in that style. this is a little more intense of transition between kick and everything else than i've heard, but it's not an incorrect methodology, it's a genre choice. the filtro fill at 3:49 into the block stutter chords sounds great, very evocative and intense. transitioning it to a harder stutter with less verb is a fun idea too, and you did a nice job ensuring that the guzheng and other lead instruments are still audible later in this section. there's a transition around 4:45 into a very long fade. this is another stylistic element that i hear a lot in downtempo and chillstep although i also would prefer a more standard ending. this is a great approach and a very evocative implementation of the original. clearly the heavy sidechaining is a taste thing, and i think it's handled well here. i like the progression from the initial feel to the more intense second half. excellent work. YES

love the original. love the slammed piano at the beginning. the claps are pretty loud over everything else, but i don't mind the kick initially. more band comes in with the melody at 0:50. this feels great here - for the most part, the bass is sitting back nicely, and the hats help with the feel despite being so far back in the mix. the ghost notes in the snare are noticeably ahead, but other than that it's nice. there's a natural break around 1:50. i get more Get Lucky vibes here with some of the fun bass fills. trumpet is a bit ahead when it comes in again. at 2:33 there's a bit of a feel change, especially in the keys doing a more rolling pattern. around here i noticed that the drums were really on auto-pilot, and it very suddenly bothered me a lot once i noticed it. there's just no attention paid to them. DS is right that this isn't the first time i've heard that from this artist. the ending is a fairly natural progression but does feel kind of flat/sudden. the splash at the end is almost a joke. this should have been an easy vote and it isn't. i think my biggest issue is also that the kick is the second-biggest thing in the track despite doing absolutely nothing the entire time. i agree with darksim that there's a total lack of dynamic progression in the track as well. there some super-minor timing stuff throughout but as a whole the bass and hats do a nice job sitting back, and the trumpet sounds great throughout. i think that this is borderline for me. there's just not a lot of attention to details like i'd expect, but it also is above my bar. i really wish that the percussion wasn't, like, the demo track you sent out to get the vibe for the bass player, and that the kick was a few db down. YES (ehhhhhhh)

personally i always disliked these original game boy tracks with fake delay. it always confused my ear. the theme of this one is really simple and nice and reminds me of the FF Legend soundtracks, but i don't care for the implementation. intro strings feel stilted. there's a really nice moment at 0:25 though that feels much more organic. the winds at 0:33 are a bit more aggressive than i'd expect. that bassoon sample is just so strange with no vibrato...unlike anything i'd ever expect to hear live. the following tremelo usage as a melodic instrument doesn't sound particularly strong either. i really didn't care for it at all. at 1:15 the bassoon comes back, and is even more exposed with no vibrato here. i love classical bassoon but this is a poor example of the instrument. handing it off to the bass clarinet is a fun choice since they do tend to be playing similar stuff, but going right back to the bassoon smacks of "i have to go somewhere with this" rather than an intentional choice. the pause before 1:50 is a nice callback to the ritardando in the original. a slightly different tempo after it would have been nice, but the harp's still mechanically plucking at those arpeggios. adding the glock later is a nice adjustment. at this point, though, the melody being handed off every 4 or 8 bars is apparent, and it's starting to sound like a summer band arrangement of a pop tune with the constant shifts. i've said this before in my votes, but you really, really need to be more intentional with your choice of melodic vehicle, and when you change it. i like that you're moving it around, but it honestly sounds like you're picking the instruments it's going to at random. where's the traditional instrumentation for that? solo cello, flute, clarinet, or horn would all be excellent methods to carry a melody of this shape, and would fit into the scoring much smoother. the oboe at the end was a nice shift and i really liked that it wasn't a square 4/8 bar section it had. there's some very light touches applied to the ending with a lot of tempo shift. i like the attentiveness here. there's some great stuff here, particularly the times when you get hands-on with the tempo instead of copy-pasting the arpeggio part from one instrument to another. i really struggled with the tone of the bassoon every time it was used, and i found the constant movement of the melodic line to be troublesome especially with how mechanical it felt. i think what's going on behind the melody was nice overall, although there wasn't a ton of that. i think that your melodic usage especially needs to be more intentional, and that probably requires more time than a conditional would take. NO

needs a new title. wow, big intro. heavily panned and very loud. the initial presentation of the main theme (which is just such a cool theme) at 0:38 feels incredible. this is the perfect vehicle for this. layering in the brass and guitar together sounds very good. there's a ton going on here with all the little winds flourishes and the detail in your lead guitar playing. the english horn at 0:35 is beautifully played. the following string parts are heavily panned but well-handled and beautiful to listen to. there's some crunch at about 2:10 that sounds like an artifact. the build after that is really exciting, and does a nice job moving to the C theme in the original without doing it exactly the same as the original did. 2:45 is an immediate head-bobber. this section's brass is a bit stilted in performance, but as an ensemble sounds great. there's a bit build/blow for the last 10 seconds and it's done. this is really energetic and fun to listen to. i'd say overall the arrangement is highly conservative, but what you did do to mix it up is welcome and does a great job. it's very loud but i didn't notice any crackling or artifacts besides the one i mentioned. excellent work. YES

i agree that the mastering is rough, MW. the kick is mega-boom city without having the punch you'd want for a track like this, and has a long tail, so it clogs the entire soundscape pretty bad. there's a lot of sub-30hz content that feels oppressive as well. there's some fun countermelodic content around 1:25 that's neat. there's a change in melodic content around 1:40 that's a nice change, although it's essentially the same instrumentation as the earlier parts of the piece. the build at 2:15 is expected but executed fine. the time signature change at 1:22 is the first really different thing going on here. i don't mind it at all, the transition is fine, although relying heavily on the 1 and 3 of the triplet exposes the need for something else going on in the background since it's very empty there. it goes back to 4/4 at around 2:52, and does yet another runthrough of the melodic content before going through a standard edm subtractive fade. this does feel pretty last-gen. it's sounding fine but there's just nothing that grabs me from what otherwise is a pretty standard adaptation. NO

meaty synth keys in the opening with lots of verb. the bass tone is instantly recognizable - love what it's doing right off the bat. the drums kind of noodle around initially, and it feels real loud here with the initial melodic content, but it's clearly from Duel Links. the leads sound great and are stylistically appropriate. i especially liked the layered leads at about 1:05. there's a break at 1:20 with some neat late-attack synths, and that leads back into some noodling in the bass at 1:50. there's an awkward note at 2:06 in the bass vs. the extended chord in the background. at 2:21, the melody comes back in and there's some ramen around the melodic content as we go through the last big blow. there's another breakdown at 2:53 and an extended outro with some bitcrushed fuzz to end it. it sounds great, instrument choice and execution is excellent, and the arrangement is clearly solid. this is an easy vote. YES

the intro is in a 3-3-2 pattern in the left hand with some great flourishes in the right - love the energy. after this, the underwater theme is brought in with a flowing arpeggiated line underneath the melodic material. this picks up with a switch to triple meter around 1:28 - this flows so well, great concept. 2:00 brings back the rolls in the right hand, and it flows right into no hopes so seamlessly. excellent concept. the use of big blocks of chords to punctuate the part before the no hopes melodic material at about 2:52 is inspired - totally unlike anything else in the piece, and does a great job defining a totally new feel. this trickles down and goes back to the underwater theme with the flowing arpeggios in the left hand. this is a nice bookend to the piece. the the maj7 chords to finish it are great. easy vote. beautiful arrangement. YES

the piano tone is not amazing, but i didn't find it to be worse than others that we've passed in recent years. if anything, my complaint is that torby likes his sustain pedal a bit too much, which combined with the big blocks of fifths and octaves in his left hand results in some dense, muddy chord blocks. less velocity on those would have helped a lot, but it's not a dealbreaker. i think there's some level of quant on this also that makes it feel more robotic than it would otherwise have felt - again, i'd prefer it wasn't there, but i don't think it's a dealbreaker. i think the arrangement is competent if conservative, and survives the adaptation to a single instrument quite well. the mastering is clear, and reverb and room tone both aren't overdone. i'd have preferred a better, more responsive instrument used, but this is over the bar. YES

rose of may is one of the site's iconic remixes - it's hard to think of Protecting My Devotion outside of that framework. so, good luck! ? harp is recorded beautifully. it's hard to get the richness of a harp's lower end in most recordings. the performance is truly well-done as well. excellent technique on the upper range to keep them clear without being all attack. the underpinning strings are well-handled and beautifully balanced so as to support without overtaking the harp's sustain tones. the harp's arrangement initially is very straightforward, but the added flourishes and arpeggiation that fills in as the track goes on is great. some percussive elements come in that are very understated around 1:45, and the orchestral backing begins to build to 2:09's intro of Protecting My Devotion. i initially didn't realize the flute part was live - compared to the flute, the recording technique wasn't as clear, nor was the instrument as clearly mixed. the eventual transition from this part was not as smooth and clear as the transition into it. the vocal section is much more uneven. i agree with MW that the lyrics consistently don't sit well within the melodic content being used, although the singer's doing a great job making me want to ignore the words and just listen to their tone. you demonstrate beautiful vibrato on the sustained pitches throughout. there are some timing issues demonstrated - notably around 3:50 - both in defining where the pickup notes are in each measure, and in that the singer rushes a bit on many of the runs. there's also a distinct lack of consonants throughout, which makes the aforementioned timing issues more notable. to be clear - this section is really cool, sung with a nice tone, and has some neat orchestral ideas underneath. it just doesn't tie to any of the original tracks at all, and the pronunciation and poor lyric-writing put the singer in a tough position. the transition back to harp and orchestra is again clearly defined, but the time change and recap to a much more militaristic tone at 5:25 is a curious arrangement choice at best and ruins the mood from the first two sections at worst. the hoots in this part are louder than the first time around to the point of distraction, and out of place as a result. this is a straightforward adaptation of Protecting My Devotion for the last minute with little new material - it's not a copy/paste from before, but it's real close - and then it just sorta ends. i understand MW's uncertainty 100% here. this is a beautifully realized and arranged representation of Sword of Doubt and Protecting My Devotion...for three minutes. there's an unrelated vocal performance that's pretty to listen to and hard to understand or make sense of for about two minutes. and then there's a minute of a bog-standard realization of Protecting My Devotion that if anything drags the entire piece down for how bland it is compared to the rest of the work. i would yes the first three minutes in a heartbeat by themselves if the song ended right at the sustain at 3:05. i would maybe yes the first five or so minutes but be on the fence about it, as the track is still barely >50% source at that point despite the first 20 seconds being straight from the track, even if the choice of where to add the vocal parts was as it is now. this would be a difficult choice, though, as it doesn't really feel like transitioning to PMD at the end and doing nothing with it, combined with a mailed-in ending, actually brings the track down quite a bit. this is borderline, which is heart-wrenching because honestly the first two minutes especially are incredibly beautiful and poignantly handled. if the last minute had been less clumsily approached, this could have been an all-timer. as it is, this is over the bar, but helped mightily by the excellent handling of the harp and subtle, intense writing in the first minute or two. YES

i voted on the original one, calling out issues with synth selection, effecting, and some mastering bits. right off the bat, this sounds a lot better. the lead is nowhere near as grating, the electric guitar sounds better, and the mix is smoother. it's a little over-panned for me, but it fits when everything's going. the lead at 1:28 and 2:11 is still very bright and highly resonant, but it's not as harsh as before. i noticed the strings in the background more this time as well - i really liked that. 2:26 when the rhythm guitar kicks up is great. it really has a great driving feel without being too heavy. overall, i still think the resonant lead at 1:28/2:11 and the electric guitar lead are both too bright. they cut through the mix so clearly and are harsh to listen to. i would like to hear a filter put on those to bring down the top end of their freq range. i think that's a five-minute fix, though, so i am good with a conditional here. the rest of the mastering is nicely balanced, and the arrangement is still simple but enjoyable. CONDITIONAL

i like the space in the opening groove between the beat and synths - feels great right away. initial presentation of the melodic material is in the right ear a bit heavy, but sounds good. i agree with MW that the instrumentation and drums feel pretty bland. the half-time bridge at 1:22 sounds great, great timing. there's a circle-back with melodic content around 1:50, a fun solo at 2:05 with a ton of great pitch bend, and a quick recap and ending. quick package, a lot going on. elephant in the room - i didn't hear anything that was problematic harmony-wise. i think the main reason the highlighted section (1:15 or 1:18) is spicy-sounding is because neon x is using extended chords - probably at least adding in the 9 if not the 11 on those chords - to provide more of a framework to noodle on. that kind of chord usage is common in jazz but not at all in most edm, so it does come across a bit different. that said, the remixer does a great job navigating them, and they provide a lot of what i found interesting about this mix. fun arrangement, at least in the synths. the drums are a loop and pretty boring throughout, but there is a lot of fun ramen going on here within a limited scope. nice work. YES

love the opening synth. some really subtle stuff in the intro which is nice. the bass and pads come in at about 0:30 and they're really warm, i like that. phendrana drifts comes in at 0:44 and it's still very calm, continuing to add elements over time. there's a big cut at 1:15, and the vin comes in at 1:18 with a beautiful swell. there's a really neat organic vibe to this entire section, with the violin contrasted against the stutter synths and bass. 1:52 has a break of sorts, and phendrana comes back in on the piano at 2:11. there's indeed some repeated stuff in this section. violin's back in at 2:28, and it again is just mildly creepy with the glissandi next to the guitar in the background. there's a main theme cameo right at the end as the track spins down. there's some really neat sound design right at the end. this is great. it's just a touch quiet for my tastes, but there's so much quiet energy and atmosphere in this track which makes it perfect for a metroid remix. excellent job. YES

i am not overly familiar with the Oracle of Seasons soundtracks. some interesting ideas. the initial intro has a lot of verb and is pretty evocative. the beat at 0:19 is great-sounding, and there's some fun buzz in the synths that comes in once and a while - love the wider tone. first melody comes in at 0:38. immediately recognizable. there's a breakdown with lots of off-beats at 1:16, and i liked the variety this provided. there's a new lead at 1:35, and this leads through to a bell-led section at 1:56 that is a fun cameo. there's some interesting chord choices in here that aren't wrong but do sound a bit different, notably in the harmonies - there's a D# in the harmony part as part of a B7 chord, and that immediately goes to something with B and D (maybe Bmin), so the D# to D sounds weird. slick transition at 2:33 with the glide lead and the guitar-adjacent sustains in the background. there's a lot of verb on every instrument, and a few chord changes sound spicy due to sustains, but there's again nothing wrong here specifically. this groove goes through to about 3:30 and then it starts to tone down to the end. to address MW's thoughts: the first subtractive section at 1:16 didn't sound problematic to me. the brass blats actually reminded me a bit of the Pyre soundtrack. i didn't hear anything at 1:30. 1:38's timing syncopation i actually liked as it mixed up the groove a bit. the note you hear at 2:08 isn't wrong, but the chord change immediately after it is poorly handled. the chord at 2:59 is fully diminished (something that's used a ton in the Link's Awakening soundtrack, actually) and so the riff sounds tight but is fine. i really liked that transition there actually. at 3:28 the note you're hearing is the flat 7 of the chord (it's an A), and it is within the chord structure but again handled weirdly and not supported in the rest of the backing part. i think the track sounds good throughout, and the arrangement is fun. there's a bunch of choices i'd not have made in the harmony and chords (primarily sounds like the artist is using more pentatonic scales than traditional major/minor), but they aren't 'wrong' notes, just odd tonalities. i can understand someone voting no on this, but i think that what's here is acceptable. i'd certainly prefer some of those flat 7s and maj/min adjacent chords being cleaned up but this is over the bar. YES

very quiet initial presentation. agree the brass sounds not-great, and the tuba or euphonium, whatever it is, in particular was not very idiomatic in performance. the melody is clearly present. i found the percussion, specifically the mallets, to not sound great on the rolls but other than that liked the use. there's a continuing orchestral crescendo throughout 1:10 to probably 1:50, and some particularly nice articulation on the flute at 1:52. at this point the mallets have been on the melody throughout and are a bit played out. the march feel of the track is most notable after 2:00 and is appreciated. there's an extended outro with one more big swell and then it's done. from a technical perspective, there's a harp flourish at 1:41 that is heavily in the low end and causes the entire track to have a much lower max db than it should. compressing that a bit and adding some overall compression to the track would allow for removal of some 5db of headroom, allowing the nuances of the track to speak more clearly. lastly, i found the left ear's glock to be too loud throughout, but only by a little. overall this is a fine interpretation. there isn't anything transformative about the handling of the melody by itself, but the overall arrangement survives adaptation to the orchestra well. YES

mix starts off with some synth brass over the main theme, and transitions quickly to the initial presentation of the theme over some off-beat bass with a really buzzy lead. this goes through the main theme's A theme twice with minimal arrangement. it sounds really, really loud here - the lead and bass are so loud you can barely hear the drums at all, let alone anything else pitched. lot of sausage. there's a transition at 1:14 into the neo cortex melodic content, this is also just a lead and bass instrument, with essentially no pad or anything, and then kicks up into a faster section at 1:37 with the B theme from neo cortex, then back to the A theme. instrumentation and mastering issues from the first half are all the same here. then it...kinda just ends. this is a track that needs a lot of workshopping. there is little arrangement here outside of fairly smooth transitions between the two songs, and a bit of shifting around where each melodic bit happens in the song scope. there's just the melodic line, the bass, and the drums, and i can barely hear the drums - there needs to be some supporting pitched content that's audible, and there needs to be a huge mastering pass with the lead turned way down to allow anything else to be audible. if i turn this track down to 50% in my headphones, i hardly hear anything but the lead. nowhere near ready yet from what i hear. this needs a lot of attention. historically your other submissions have been solid, so i'm assuming this just needs some love which you are fully capable of providing, and then it'll be great. right now it's not there yet. NO

initial intro sounds nice. there's some fun bassy buzzes, the percussion initially sound fine, the synths are fine for what they're doing. i agree there's little arrangement going on, and that the mastering has that low-focused sound lacking highs that i associate with early 00s electronica. there's some new content in the last 15 seconds, but that's about it. the ending is pretty basic and sudden. the copypasta kills this one. there needs to be more arrangement here - the straight loop of the first minute or so doesn't cut it. play with the chords, add a breakdown without percussion, do some new synth work or add countermelodies...there's lots of options. right now this is too lacking in arrangement to meet the posting standards. NO

big powerful opening, very evocative. we start to get the initial groove around 0:54 and it reminds me of the dune mix we have on the site initially. it does sound very loud. the initial uber-funk groove at 1:20 is clipping like mad, but it sounds really fun! there's a ton of groove, i especially like the choral pad in the background. the energy backs off around 2:38 but continues to utilize space and silence really well to give it a hard funky feel. the muted brass around 3:00 is nice, a good timbre change. we get what feels like a recap at 3:22. the melodic content comes back a lot, it seems, and it's repeated right after in the brass in prep for a big drop-off at 4:23. the sudden percussion dropout makes it hard to catch the beat for a few seconds, and there's some big swells with an oud coming in to flesh it out. this builds into a big blow for the last minute and a half or so, around 5:00. it's definitely clipping like mad, and it still sounds legit awesome. tons of space in the synth groove, lots of interesting synth work. it does kind of end, but it's at least a good resolution there. i'm honestly torn on this one. it sounds super freaking awesome. and it clips like mad everywhere, but it honestly doesn't sound bad. there's presence in all frequency ranges, and the bass especially sounds really clean. i didn't have any issues with the sample and synth choices - there's clearly a lot of interplay between the synths and realistic-sounding samples, and i thought that interplay was really neat. i don't want to just reject it because i had to amplify it by -2.3db. ima call this a conditional. send us a version with the gain at -0.5 instead of +2 and i'm good. CONDITIONAL edit 6/14: emu's right, of course - my ear says it's fine, so who cares what the meter says. YUSS

some fun originals, lots of character there. initial presentation is thin-sounding and quiet, and starts with monochrome dreams. there's some fun schmearing in the vins and lots of melody passing between everything, but there's admittedly not a lot going on in the arrangement besides the oom-pah and the melody. the sound quality of these samples isn't great. at 1:07 the other original comes in, and this includes a significant time change and a lot more depth to the orchestration. there's a break at 1:50 and it comes back to monochrome dreams. this is mostly a recap of the initial section, not copy-paste but a lot of similar writing. at 2:57 we get a significant shift into a more aggressive feel, and it picks up old friends/old rivals in a slower, more intense scoring. this is the first real arrangement i've heard in the track and it's great! there's some meaty stuff with a (not great) men's choral pad used at 3:45, and a fairly standard ending. there are two main issues here. first is sample usage - while we don't expect everyone to have picture-perfect orchestral samples across the board, there's a lot here that doesn't sound great. some level of layering on the strings for example will flesh out the timbre so it doesn't sound so thin. more consistent verb across the board will also help to smooth out the tone. second is arrangement - 2/3rds of this is essentially the same as the original, done with roughly the same instruments, in the same style as the original, at around the same tempo. there's a ton of variety that you introduced in the last quarter of the track - use more of that! you've clearly got an ear for what can be done, now just get after it and make it yours, not the original composer's. i don't think this is ready yet. needs more workshopping. NO