prophetik music

agree with MW that we need a render that doesn't start with a loop point. intro is immediately recognizable despite the extra layering. i particularly liked the way the harmonies at 0:36 sounded. 0:55's tonal shift is really fun (tbh sounded like something from Shang-Chi). the drums got a bit stale after a few repetitions, but they shift up at 1:30 and again at 1:50 so that's a good choice. there's a few funky notes in between the bass and backing arp at 2:03 that i think is related to sustain overlaps. there's a shift again at 2:24, and it's a nice break for a bit. we get a recap of the tuvan section with some new synths under it, and then the descending theme in the flute. it's nice that these are similar but clearly not the same as earlier sections. at about 3:45 the track starts to wind down, and the last 30 seconds or so are some really nice ambience. this is essentially a rubber stamp. i loved it, great job! YES

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

track starts with some vocaloid elements over an orchestral backing part. i should admit i really didn't like this combo and it was an immediate turn-off for me. there's some kick and synths that come in soon after this and the track drives forward with a much more energetic edm feel. the melodic line comes in at 0:46 and it's quite loud compared to what's going on behind it, but overall has a Final Countdown kind of feel through here. the strings that get layered in eventually are really nice too. there's a break at 1:24 for a bit, and then the vocaloid parts come back in at 1:30. they sound much less out of place among the synthy elements of this section vs. the first part. there's a shift in the beat pattern at 1:57, which is a nice change, and the lead here is doing some fun stuff and has some nice vibrato on it. it's a touch shrill but i like how it cuts through. 2:28 brings back the first lead for some call and response work, and does some noodling around the melodic content. the glide on that first lead is nice and it shows here well. there's a significant climax at 3:48 and it drops off for a final (extended) build. the additional use of strings through this last section was nice and left me wishing there were more orchestral elements earlier in the work. 4:52 is the last big gasp (i wish this hit was a touch longer!), and then we just get a short fadeout of one of the backing synths. my personal feelings about the use of the synth voice aside, this is a fun track with a lot of energy. there's a great natural shape to the work, and a preponderance of source so no concerns there. part of me wished for a punchier mastering on the overall track to really get into the kick groove, but the way it is now really works nicely to keep it moving. nice work. YES

nearly 3dba of headroom. kick drum right off the bat sounds really weird - essentially no drum sound, just the beater without any bass. there's some sfx and the descending arpeggio in the background, and it does this for over a minute. there's some guitar that comes in at 1:05, and it doesn't appear to have any verb or room tone on it initially as compared to the backing parts. it's also much louder relative to what's in the background. this continues in the same slow, intense method until 2:05 or so. at 2:09 it switches to double time and is primarily a rhythm guitar pattern with some other stuff underneath, but the guitar crushes everything in terms of volume. there's some piano doing stuff that sounds reminiscent of the original but it's honestly hard to hear. this continues until 2:48 when it's back to being the original tempo. there's some guitar noodles above some synthy noodles, until we get a riding pattern from the guitar again at 3:18. this builds to a silence break before a brickwall transition at 3:55. the section at 3:55 continues to be all guitar. there's still no bass instrument let alone any bass tone in the kick, so it's still a bit top-heavy. it chugs through until it drops to half-time again at 4:28. it stays in this lower-energy groove until the track's end at 5:32. there's no real resolution there either, it just kind of ends. i think this track needs quite a bit of work still. i think the underlying concept - a patient, slow yet intense, expansive approach to the motivic elements of the original using heavier guitars - is definitely something that could work! there's some cool ideas here. however it's balanced very poorly throughout and there is a lot of noodling instead of intentional motivic development, so it's hard to really hear the original consistently. fixing the mastering of the individual instruments and adding a bass presence would also help ground the chords you're using which will subsequently help root what's going on in the original. NO edit 11/9: my vote will not change.

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

twenty-six source tunes...!! starts with a pretty light beat with some funkish chords, and picks up quick at 0:15. the lead guitar sounds great as it filters in, especially layered with the backing synth line. the arpeggio at 0:47 is such a great idea with that clanky set of hats behind it - i love the sound. 1:22 got some snippets getting passed around and eventually lines up at 1:41 with the full band sound again. there's a wrong note in the guitar at 1:51 - wonder if that can be fixed in post - and then the texture thins out for a break for a bit. 2:13 the guitar comes back in, and the texture shifts to more sustains as opposed to the more angular opening sections. the fast arp comes back, this time with some automated panning, and it noodles through some more chord shifts until the whoile group is back in at 3:12. there continue to be a variety of effects on the iconic arp, until it drops and we get some more melodic playing on the guitar at 3:45. this plays through a bit and then it's done. the breadth of approach here is superb. there's a ton going on, as is expected, but the different timbres used and the variety of scope within the view of the work as a whole is great. excellent job. YES

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

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

sfx until 0:22, and then some sustains for about 35s until we start to get some content. the themes shift through pretty fast, at least to my ears, but they do so in a way that doesn't feel overly medley-ish. the first several, for example, are more snippets and share instrumentation so they really feel like different aspects of the same thing. the overlapping combinations is a really key element to not making this feel like blocks of unfinished remixes mashed together. the themes really come together nicely throughout. this is an excellent arrangement job. the instrumentation choices are also fun - the obviously synthetic elements are modeled after real instruments which is a neat choice given the highly organic nature of the chosen theme. this is good stuff throughout. YES

cute idea. the opening is mostly sfx with some of the intro chords underneath, and it doesn't really coalesce until about 0:41. i agree with larry that the guitars initially felt pretty dry and not really in the same space as the drums, and the bass and lead synth felt somewhere else from those two as well. i think the volumization of these parts is at least partly responsible for that as the drums are really loud compared to everything else. there's a break at 1:36 that leans on the tritone a lot (i remember other tracks in this soundtrack having a heavy emphasis on the tritone too). this noodles a bit until it really doubles down on 2:17 and everything's back in. there's some choir added in as well which made me realize that the lack of pad elements in the earlier sections is part of why they felt kind of thin. the last 25 seconds or so are mostly sfx again, and it's done. this is well-realized and a strong initial concept. i think some of the mixing could be handled differently so it wasn't so drum-heavy, and some pad work would flesh out the soundscape in a few places, but overall this is a solid job. YES

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

you should form a group called Too Many Trevors. the comparison to the reference track is immediately recognizable - the beats feel very similar (if a little less grimy) and the plectral lead is very reminiscent. agree with larry that it's a pretty straightforward adaptation. i don't have any issue with the beat at all - it's clearly the same concept as the other track. from an arrangement perspective, there's some little personalizations here and there but it's admittedly pretty conservative. the value there is in the novelty of the adaptation, which i think is enough. from a mixing and mastering perspective, while the reference track isn't my jam, you definitely did what you set out to do, and i think that the vibe is solid. nice work. this is a neat one. YES

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

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

oddly panned in the initial few seconds. the ep that comes in at 0:14 is great, and the bass feels good under it. the initial verse's flow is solid if a tiny bit rushed. i love the interplay on the pre-chorus, and the chorus works great as a breakpoint. i thought this is particularly well-performed. there's a nice little break after the chorus before the 2nd verse comes in at 2:12. the additional energy in this verse is great, even aside from the fun vocal effecting. second chorus is great and the high note at the end of it is a great payoff. the bridge is a little sudden after the chorus - a bit of time to enjoy the high note would have been nice - but the instrumental section after is nice and the guitar solo sounds great with a great turnaround at the end. after this is another run-through of the pre-chorus and the chorus with some additional percussion. i thought the percussion elements didn't really fit the vibe of the track up to that point really at all, but they didn't overstay their welcome. there's an outro after this that works well and it's done. this is an easy vote for me. the nitpicks i mentioned don't change that the track has a nice shape, it's well-performed, and the elements are strung together nicely. nice work. YES

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

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

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

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

it's not clear to me why we didn't get the full 16-minute arrangement. the sound at 0:27 is sfx for a cicada, i think. i agree with chimpa that this is whimsical - that's an excellent word to use for this. i'm not going to timestamp this like i usually do because it's so long and it'd just be reductive, but in general i land closer to chimpa's perspective of the realism and approach. i think that the handling of percussion and winds for the most part lifts the string realization enough for it to be fine. i think there's too much panning, especially the rainstick (thanks kris, now i can't unhear it). the tambourine is mixed how i'd expect it to sound in a live orchestra, so actually i think that's OK. i think that the arrangement itself is conservative, but there's more here than just transcribing for an orchestral setting, and the themes flow together really well (far better than i expected given the previous votes) - the only awkward one is at 6:41 in the winds. i also think i like this track much more than recent RET arrangements. there's some more character here than usual that's not just the excellent originals. it's certainly not perfect but is very enjoyable to me. YES

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

i am 37 years old and i just realized today that alucard is dracula backwards. i always thought the name was just dumb-sounding. intro has the iconic arpeggio and lead melodic content in piano intially, then layers in orchestral elements and vocals. this does some stuff until we get some trap snares and it gets cooking. 0:56 is where the vocals really come in. i think this sounds pretty good here honestly, but this is easily the genre i know the least about. the flow sounds good and the chorus being doubled up an octave is a great idea. i particularly liked the constant vox sfx were a positive. 2:25 was pretty impressive as well. 3:02 is the start of the outro. the final beat drops out at 3:17, and there's some piano and strings to ride to the finish. final sustain was a touch short. this was not what i expected based on the writeup or intro, but it honestly sounds awesome. the beat is solid and i really liked the technical ability showcased both in your vocals and in the sfx applied to vocal clips throughout. YES

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

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

from my original vote. the opening is still a very conservative - almost exact - version of the original. the flute's got a lot of reverb on it, and still is pretty boring in approach - in fact it's hard to tell the difference from the original. the scoring around 0:54 is truly beautiful - however, it's still pretty much the original's scoring and is more a sound upgrade. the flute's sustains don't ever break (give the poor player a break!) and the longer sustains highlight how unrealistic the flute's vibrato is, so that's not a great sound. 1:36 brings in a shift, complete with shakuhachi and a more old-world/ethnic approach to the voices. english horn is still pretty but boring, and not particularly realistic in the realization, and still buried. the strings used here have a very long lead time and so they constantly feel like they're swelling into the chord rather than being there, again not very realistic. the elements around 2:10-2:21 are theatrical and exciting to listen. 2:31 is the B theme in this second orchestral group, and overall this section is also not particularly transformative once you get past the solo instrument on top. 3:11 is still the vocal ensemble, but this time what it's singing is much more related to the original, and there's some fun orchestral elements brought in. i really liked this exploratory section. the fade in the whistle is obviously post since the timbre doesn't change as it gets quieter, which was distracting. i still think there isn't enough arrangement here overall despite that last section. the best elements to this track are still mitsuda, and just putting a whistle over the top of the second section doesn't somehow change that it's still strings, percussion and a wind lead doing the exact original notes in the same places, right down to the flips in the lead and the speed of the flam to end the not-harp's part. compare 1:04 in the original to 2:31 in this one and i'd still rather listen to the original despite the lesser sound quality. 1:50 is still the same plucks as the beginning with a wind lead - adding percussion doesn't make it arranged. it sounds really nice pretty much across the board except for the flute vibrato and the constant swells in the sustained strings pad. i'm just finding it very difficult to point to elements of the track that are transformatively arranged from mitsuda's work. similar to my votes on your things in the past, i don't see putting a solo instrument line over the original to be an arrangement, and especially in the B section here, i feel that way here. NO edit: i think i am probably making perfect the enemy of good. i believe pretty strongly that the actual instrumentation elements add a lot to the mix with how they're handled, but saying that they're a sound upgrade is probably too limiting and reductive. i thought about it after and realized that it would be difficult to articulate what truly needs to change to change my vote, which usually means i am overthinking it. gonna adjust my vote accordingly. YES