prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

beat first hits at 0:09. some muted synths early on, and we get some lead instruments at about 0:28. some more fun arpeggiated stuff at 0:46, and soon after get the mute city melodic content and then the top gear melody. i admire the patience to wait that long to bring it in. there's some layering of the parts through here that doesn't quite settle right in a few places. additionally, even with the panning you added, it's still hard to hear the individual parts between the two leads as they're similar synths in the same audio range. the mute city melody comes in again at 2:16 after a break and really fits the vibe - this is probably my favorite part of the whole track. the beat drops at 2:51 and it trucks through the mute city melody one more time before some sfx, and it's done. i'm a little split on this one right now. on one hand, the groove is really nice with a lot of ear candy, and mute city parts are great. on the other hand, i don't particularly care for the section at 1:21 at all as it sounds messy and it's hard to pick out what's happening, and there are other areas where the freq ranges are pretty saturated and it starts to bother my ears after a bit (like at 2:20). i'm also not a huge fan of the not-ending. overall i think this is over the bar but fairly close. i think the style and the genre adaptation bring it over the finish line. YES

intro riff is appropriately funky. at 0:11 it takes a second for everything to mesh together. there's a bit of a mix of swings - the hats have a harder swing than the synth lines do, which makes it a bit jumbly initially - but it still sounds neat and i especially like the lead's tone. this quickly transitions to a much broader section featuring a time sig change and some broad synth pads. the funk comes back at like 1:25 and the groove is still a little disjointed, but the space in the overall track here helps balance it a bit. we get a sustain in the guitars that quickly goes Plini-ish at 1:51 and then takes off. i love this upbeat section. it's short, but the soaring guitars are so good. it comes back down (still feels like Plini) and then we get a significant tempo change and some soloing. the melodic material is back at 3:07 with the ascending lick that's then harmonized, and then some great guitar work. there's some bass riffs and it's done. what a fun take! there's a lot of exploration of what's honestly a pretty basic original, given that it's just a bass riff and some synth flourishes. this really branches out and does a great job. YES

i heard a pre-version of this that had far louder bass, and this is much more balanced now. the saxophone sounds notably better too - tone is far less overblown, it's more in tune, and there's some nice vibrato in several places. there's been some touchups to the bass clarinet too - notably the really rough unisons are cleaned up entirely. great to hear this one cross the finish line. nice patience and great work everyone. YES

starts out with some sfx and some crazy motorcycle sounding arps, with the first real hit starting at 0:29. there's not a ton of bass body in this section but there's some really fun stuff going on in the higher ranges with some of the sparkly synths. Into the Giant is the melodic content here, with some purposefully glitched out tones. we finally get the beat at 1:11 with a clearer melodic synth. the beat comes and goes, which i thought was a little confusing, and there's a few funky notes at 1:37 in the backing tempo-synced stuff. the B side of the melodic content continues after this section. we get a glitchy transition alarm section, and then we're in crazy motorcycle. this was a fairly abrupt transition. heavier guitar sounds great, and i love the stutter effects on it especially. lead guitar sounds just a touch ahead of the beat - maybe this stem was dropped in a bit ahead? - and the beat-no beat-beat-no beat pattern continues here and kind of saps energy as it happens. there's a ton going on behind the lead guitars and 2:58 is probably one of my favorite parts of the piece - i love the density of what's going on with that screaming guitar over the top. more sfx (the one sounds like a chainsaw, although i know it's a motorcycle...funny visual either way). there's an extended build with Into the Giant building up to a big, consistent, end to end run-through the melodic material which is great, and then it goes up to another level with the guitar lead at the end. bringing back the guitar really ties the two major sections together, this was a great choice. the ending is sudden though and not particularly prepared - that's a downer, this was really trucking and then suddenly's done without even a downbeat. from an overall perspective, i thought the arrangement is really solid overall and i feel the track is mixed well. there's not many times i think to myself that something's out of balance or getting buried in the mix, which is pretty great considering how much is going on throughout. i definitely think this is above our bar. nice work. YES

gonna just talk about source usage first and then get back to it from there. within the first minute, the arrangement is primarily The Depths and it's...pretty conservative? the original is tons of space. if you drop the beats and the bass in this remix, it's basically what The Depths is for a minute solid. it just doesn't 'start' until the big bass fart at 0:28. i really like the inspired synth choice at 0:55 to pick something that sounds like the big bass blat while also sounding like the orchestral pizz plus air sound in Dive to the Depths at 0:39. this explores those sounds until about 1:30. Dive to the Depths has more melodic content, if you can call it that, and that starts around 1:30 in the remix. the primary elements from this original are the initial flourish in the piano, the flute at 0:08, and celli, and the orchestral pizz. those are used regularly in this remix after the 1:30 mark. based on the writeup from Gaspode, and taking into account the volume of space in the originals as compared to how spread out the main elements of this remix are, i think this is enough. timestamping this would be silly due to the amount of not-music in the originals, so i think we need to err on the side of a more inspiration-based perspective. i think that there's a preponderance of the elements that made the originals unique represented in this remix. if anything, peter's intentional lack of transformation of the tones of the original elements helps make the correlations more clear than they would otherwise. this absolutely could have been farther out in left field and still been close enough for me. regarding the remix itself - what a fun track. you do an excellent job retaining the mystery and space (and, dare i say, timelessness, that is, the lack of a feeling of time progressing) of the original remix. there's a ton of exploration here especially within the drum work that really does a great job of emphasizing and reinforcing the original elements. my only nits would be that i wished for the synths at the end to sustain a bit longer. i also think i'd have preferred a deeper, lower kick tone with more subbass content to help emphasize the name of the original. these are preferences however and do not affect my vote. you get a hearty approval from me, bravo. YES

thank you for the very clear breakdown. synthwave vibe is clear right off the bat, and i love the minor version of the main melodic line. the flute is a nice layer on it as well. there's a little less going on in the background than i'd have expected based on the influences, especially at 0:32 where it's just buzzy mono synth, drums, and bass behind the guitar. the A melody comes back quickly and is layered again with flute and this time sax. i really like the articulation elements that are used here. i will note that i think all of the leads are a touch loud in the mix. the sax section after that is great, and the flute section right after is also great as a palette cleanser. there's a short falloff and then a slick sax solo. the tone is a bit treble-ly and maybe doesn't need to cut so much through the mix in this particular section, but what it's saying is dope and i love it. guitar solo after it is also fantastic and i love the mirrored sections. after the solo section, at 2:50 we get some layered melodic lines starting at different times as well as a rising tempo-synced pad in the background that really does a great job building up to a final big note. there's a few rhythmic elements and then it's done. this is a great blow from start to finish. i didn't consider it to be too transformative given the very minimal source tune. taking the piano melodic line and combining it with the initial chord-blip-blip section in the piano to make a singable melodic line is a fantastic idea and it's executed in a cohesive and successful manner. the track sounds good from a mastering perspective, and most of my complaints are nits at most. nice work. YES

7/8 is a clever vehicle for a track based on arpeggios. the intiial arpeggios are nice and buzzy, and the subsequent lead and kick are also pretty lo-fi. i didn't care much at all for the kick's tone at all since it crushed everything against the limiter every time it hits, and the mix really sits hard in the 300-350hz range where there's some huge spikes so it's overly dense and hard to differentiate what's going on. i think i'd like the instrumentation and the distortion that's all over the place if i could hear the individual parts more. there's a big shift at 0:50 where it goes to 6/8 and drops the percussion for a bit. again this section is turbo-slammed against the limiter so it's hard to hear what's going on. it goes back to 7/8 at 1:17 and noodles through the flute part - i like the playing with time you do in this section quite a bit. there's a triplet line over top that i really like too. after this, the track very suddenly ends, which was a real disappointment since the vibe was really solid. there's some silence to trim too. overall this is really jammed against the limiter throughout, and like i said everything's sitting in a similar range which makes it hard to differentiate what's going on. some light panning would help there too but ultimately this needs work with volumizing and the kick needs to be sidechained to prevent it murdering everything else every time it hits. i believe backing off the distortion just slightly would help with the similar range issue too since it'd allow more fundamental tone to make it through. i love the concept and i love the synth choices, it just needs some mastering love. NO

interesting idea. initial cortez riff is right off the bat. this is a natural genre adaptation imo from the original, still goofy like the game but way heavier than the PS was able to do. i actually think the dirty vocals are a bit loud relative to the truly awesome backing parts. there's some really fun lyric/music elements in here. the stomp section and the d-d-d-die section are really well done actually, and the harmonized section at 1:46 reminded me of the fall out boy song about what you did in the dark. it's also a lot more narrative than i expected based on the description. there's a big break/shift at 3:19 which does a nice job of breaking up what had been over three minutes of just continual balls-to-the-wall for a while. i expected a t-pain mansion-wiscansin rhyme for the rhyme between n-sane and again at the end, but it still sounded fine. this is really fun! the rock itself is super enjoyable - i can definitely see people asking for an instrumental version of this - and the vocals overall are well-handled. i actually understood most of the dirty stuff which is a first. what a fun track. YES

lot of sfx and tempo-synced stuff to start, in particular a lot of panning elements. most of the first 45s are heavier in my left ear. i don't think that's intentional. there's a significant build into 0:55, and the first big hit of everything at 0:55 also sounds a bit weird - the bass peaks at like 70hz instead of 30-35hz like i'd expect. is there a filter on this that's cutting out subbass content there? there's also a big notch around 350hz and i can kind of hear the scooped mids there. paging resident primate @Chimpazilla for help with what i'm hearing. apes together strong. the flourish at 1:08 that's mirrored in a lower instrument is a neat idea. there's a break at 1:23 or so that again has a lot of tempo-synced stuff going on, and especially the swooping effect got a little irritating after the first few times i heard it. the beat comes back after that and quickly goes back to the tempo-synced quieter stuff - some very fast transitions there. there's an interlude with chips at 2:07 that again sounds hollow with whatever filter's on it, and a half-time section after that that i really dig, and then another half-time section that's different and i dig that a lot. this is a great break section, still featuring some of the tempo-synced stuff but really shifting the vibe a lot. the heavily distorted synth that comes in at 2:55 was >9000x louder than i expected and was probably too much. the following trap-adjacent (pitfall?) section with the funky hats is again a neat change in style. it's very busy and probably could use a bit of trimming down/volumizing down stuff that's less important (just a little, this part is honestly real close). there's a big build into 3:38 that really subverts expectations with the drop. nice use of the vocal clip to further that subversion. eventually it picks back up at 3:50 and goes through the melodic content from Towering Mountain. the transition out of that section (or lack of one) is pretty jarring. the following perc-less pad section loses a lot of energy fast, and the following detuned bell vibe is pretty minimal and felt like it lost some direction. i did like the shifts to chords that were added to that melodic snippet. i admit that i would have been very fine with a short outro after the section ending at 4:05 - the last section is very different and there's not a ton tying it to the first 80% of the track. i think that there's a lot of little things here that, if corrected, would result in a really ridiculously great track. i am particularly interested to see if we can figure out why the opening sounds like it's missing part of the freq range. that said, it's a really fun listen and does some super creative stuff with musical elements and especially with synth effects, although the mastering needs work. i think this track has a place on the site, if not now, then eventually. YES

arpeggio is in the piano right off the bat, much slower. really introspective texture initially. melody comes in at 0:31 and is beautifully articulated and realized. the overlapping vocal lines in the background form an interesting pad as they fade in and out, and there's some nice suspensions in there too. the initial runthrough of the melody is done at 1:48, and we get some more three-note snippets until it's done. the melodic representation here is articulated the same as the original and sounds very close to the original, so the artist is right - this is indeed pretty close to the original, but i don't think i'd call it a cover. the backing elements really flesh out some of the simple beauty of the melody line. whenever i think of how to handle conservative arrangement, i have to approach it from the perspective of "does this say something different than the original". often covers are just spicy versions of the original track. i don't think that's the case here. think about how Death On The Snowfield feels so different from the original despite being very, very similar to the original's basic structure. in this case, you take a track that is easily described as earnest or hopeful and make a much more introspective, rainymood-ish version of it. while the melodic content and chords aren't different, the significant changes in instrumentation and realization added to the sfx really make for a new work. this is pretty enjoyable. nice work. YES

submission email game is on point. initial beat is super 2002 in a good way. big snare comes in at 0:15 and then the melody's soon after. the vox sample took me by surprise but it's exactly as cheesy as i expected. i liked the shift of the beat right after that - it punches pretty hard and the melody snips in there are nice too. there's a break at 1:17 with a bunch of filtered elements. this goes through a run of the melody complete with faux-chorus pads, i love this vibe. there's a false build at 2:10 that opens up soon after to the first big beat again. this is 1:1 with the original starting at 0:15, I think, until the big transition at 2:54. after that is very similar to 0:47 but slightly different, until eventually the leads are doing different stuff for a bit. we get a break/outro starting at 3:25 and it's done. i would have liked to not see quite as much copy/paste at 2:25, but it's only 25-30 seconds and the section right after is similar but not exact to earlier. overall though the track has a great beat and hits hard. i like the sfx usage and the melodic content usage is fine. nice work. YES

classic original. starts with tampura drone and flourishes in the flute and sitar. remix really starts at 0:37 to my ear. percussion drops a bit at 0:55 for the first presentation of the melody. it's a pretty thin texture here - the hand drums are very clear and crisp, and the sitar's doing its thing, and the flute's got the melody, and that's it. it builds up a bit naturally by adding in a larger variety of drum hits. 1:34 adds some vocals - are these you? this was essentially one run-through of the original. 2:07 goes back to the first escalating chord pattern. it's still a pretty thin texture here, but the more heavy reliance on the drone and using the flute for some more solo stuff is nice. there's some more exploratory stuff through this section which was a good change to stretch out the remix scope a bit. eventually the vocals come back in again. 3:40 is another break with some more flute soloing and then it's done. this is actually pretty tough for me. on one hand, there's some really virtuosic flute playing which is fun to hear, the hand drums are interesting and well-realized and super crisp and clear, and i really appreciate the really light soundscape due to the smaller number of instruments. on the other hand, it's basically twice through the chord progressions and then a drum hit for an ending, and the entire first runthrough is pretty conservative. the sitar is also not particularly idiomatic throughout, and there's even some of what sound like sample retrigger spots that don't sound realistic at all. overall i think this is above our bar. from a realization and mixing standpoint, i like the soundscape a lot, and the flute performance is really great with a ton of really fun flourishes added. i'd have loved to see more alexis in the realization of the melodic line, like what you do halfway through the second run of the melody, and less original - you clearly have great ideas, so let them out more often! YES

holy crap, this is a 262mb wav. i am not going to go through and timestamp somethinig >750s long, so i'll call out my general thoughts. i'll note that usually medleys get judged harshly here since it's hard to do something transformational with 30 seconds per song. as a whole, you've certainly got some stuff in here that's significantly arranged, but there's also a lot that's just a cover and that's not great. the mix is super treble-ly. this is probably due to using whatever synths you're using to simulate everything. i grabbed a random 30s section and the lowest bass content was at 68hz and then it was hard scooped under that, and there was a lot concentrated around the fundamental freqs through maybe 250hz before it started to drop off like expected. this is not a great freq balance and my ears confirm it - it's very dense in the mids and there's no bottom to the track at all. i can hardly hear a kick, and while i can hear the bass regularly because there's no pitched instruments aside from the guitar leads and the bass, there's no meat to it. speaking of lack of backing content, there's no backing elements. it's all lead guitars, occasionally a synth lead with the guitars doing rhythm elements, and a bass and drums. i don't consistently hear any rhythm guitar behind the lead, backing synths that aren't doubling the lead parts outside of a few sections, countermelodic components, etc. it makes for a very bleak and empty soundscape despite some fun drum programming in a few spots and some neat synthy guitar work. i'll note that it does get better as the track goes on, but i shouldn't need to listen for eight minutes to get some synth flourishes in the background. the synth guitars throughout sound like synth guitars, which can work, but it sounds pretty vanilla here. this really needs either some more intentional and better-sounding guitar elements, or else a shift away from synth guitar as the lead entirely. from an arrangement perspective, there's a lot of drum loops. each song's got its own loop, but they essentially don't change for the entire section. the fills that i hear are fun, but again, you can't just be on autopilot aside from transitions. there should be some more variety in there to make it less obvious that it's programmed. i think there's some really fun ideas here! some more love and intentionality to the guitar and drum programming, fleshing out the soundscape some more, and then starting over on the mixing and EQing would do a lot. NO

"That is to say I think this track rules but I'm prepared to be humbled by the judges." TIME TO OIL UP! aside: i went to listen to the original while downloading the track, and it started autoplaying over Youtube. Let's just say that it started right after the initial percussion lick in the original, and the stylistic difference was a surprise =) initial hit is ZOMG YES RAWK, so much so i actually missed the melodic content! it's mixed quietly. there's a half-time section at 0:32 that felt like new material, but then the more aggressive section at 0:48 does some subtractive stuff to the lead which is a fun idea and works great. this goes back to the half-time stuff that i think is new, which is a bit concerning since we're at 50/50 new and remix material right now. 1:42 is, surprise, an aggressive section with the melodic material being represented again by a cutdown version of the melody. in an effort to subvert expectations, though, you go to the original section again, but this time it's louder! it again transitions between the melodic riff and the descending line a few more times (quicker transitions) and then it's done. i posted an ask around where the descending line that first shows up at 0:33 comes from. as it is, i think that part's original, and so that means this is >50% original material, and that means that it can't be posted in this current state. that stinks because i think the track is super fun to listen to and i like the subtractive method of arranging the iconic melodic line of this track. NO DEPENDING ON RESPONSE edit 1/10: the remixer confirmed it's original. i think there's too much original in the work as a result. whether or not it's over 50%, it feels like all the important parts in the mix are based on that original section. so this is a NO from me, dawg. it'd need to have some of that original stuff trimmed back so it's not so close to 50%, or else emphasizing the remixed content more.

i last voted on the first resub of this (out of three! we never see this level of commitment!). my NO vote was primarily based on the significant mastering shortfalls. it's changed a bit since then so i'll approach this fresh. choir into a pretty big band sound to start it off. it's real loud right off the bat and doesn't have a lot of treble in there. there's a fun 404 bass going on that i like, but that high resonant lead tone is really offputting. there's a break at 0:33, but it's hard to grok what the bell lead is playing because it's so loud that it's getting squelched pretty hard. it goes back to the intro instrumentation before another break at 0:57 for the B content. the A content picks back up with a new lead and some tempo-synced pads behind it. there's a lot of personalization here, but the verby string-adjacent lead sounds odd since it doesn't sound like it should be louder than everything else going on - the timbre feels weird. there's a dropoff at about 2:10, and a ritard at the end to finish it off. this feels loud throughout. everything feels crushed as a result there's still a notable peak at 70hz and a ton of consistent content through 350hz, which means you've got a lot of stuff in the same shelf competing for the same space. this is probably why it feels so loud and dense. i also didn't notice any panning - even a little bit can really open up the sound stage to make things more differentiated. beyond that, i like that you're changing leads up to keep it interesting, but some of the leads you're using are not particularly suited to the style you're going for here. i find presets nice to find a general idea of what i'm looking for, but getting into the preset and customizing it from there is where the magic happens and i'd encourage you to try that more. i think your arrangement is fine. the realization and subsequent mixing/mastering of it is where it's being held back right now. NO

metal af to start. the initial section with the growls sounds pretty solid, but i'll admit i can't understand a word of the clean vocals since they're so quiet relative to the rest of the track. they're also kind of treble-ly throughout. the track slammajammas through some really mean riffing and drum work for the first 1:50, and there's a bunch of the riffs from the original throughout so i'm good with the arrangement. this is a beast of an original to adapt into a vocal track - brandon does a really great job with a really rough melody line, honestly, even if the words are a bit difficult to fit in sometimes. given that the vocals aren't the focus of the track, i don't mind that the words aren't always really very fitting of the melody line. there's a break (>>??>>) at 1:55, and some fun stuff going on in there with the violin as a really out of nowhere add. i agree that the solo is all angles and sharp edges and i love it too. it goes through some more riffing and then it's done. this is super intense and i love it. virt's music is so technically proficient that we don't get nearly enough remixes of his stuff as i'd wish, so i'm all over this. your playing is proficient and your arrangement is solid and recognizable, and everyone who contributed really did a great job. nice work. YES

my original vote primarily criticized the live performances, the overly simplistic intro/outro, and commented on the backing part being just a little too simple. sax does sound marginally better with zach playing - better tone and intonation, but zach sounds like he's eating the mouthpiece and it's still really overblown especially on the low notes - although the recording quality is not great. GotW's part is pretty quiet - in fact, both zach and the clarinet are quiet - and there's still a gross unison at 0:55. gotw's bass clarinet still occasionally sounds off pitch-wise to my ears. 1:16 honestly sounds like there's distortion or something on the sax's tone. sax solo at 1:46 says some fun stuff. there's another not-great unison and some harmony playing, and a much more intentional outro on the track. i think the opening and outro are a lot better than they were before. i think the drums sound a lot better too. i just still am not comfortable passing the track with the state of the lead parts. if this goes back again, hit me up and i'll pitch-fix the clarinet and record the sax parts for you. this is a fun track and i want it to succeed, and i just don't feel it's there yet. NO

track is mono. stereo is a requirement for us, so this can't pass as-is, but i'll still go through it. also about 7db of headroom. starts out with some minimal blurbs and drum machine beats, and is fleshed out a bit with a square bass and some more static cymbals as it gets going. soon after we get both melodic lines coming in and out alongside one another. they work together better than i expected upon first listen to the originals. these truck alongside one another until a slight break in the beat at 1:41, and then it's back in with a third countermelodic element over top in a pad. it trucks through the melodic the beat and bassline has been the same throughout, and the melodic parts when they're playing are the same throughout as well. there's a countermelodic element that starts at 1:54 that is pretty not in the same key as the rest of the song, so that's an issue. from a sound design perspective, the concepts you're using here could work, but there needs to be a lot more attention paid to making the synth work more detailed and interesting to listen to - tracks that succeed using default sounds like this include a lot more complexity in what those default sounds are saying, and tracks that succeed with similarly laid-back and simple synth lines use synths that are much more interesting to listen to. for this to pass, i'd expect to see a lot more in-depth work with pads, backing synths, bass, and drums to vary it up and craft the soundscape more than the loops that are here, and i'd expect to see more personalization in the lead parts to make it more your arrangement vs. playing through the original melody. beyond that, some work with the mixing to make it less samey throughout and add dynamics and variance will help as well. i think the workshop forum and/or discord can definitely help with these. NO

last time i voted on this, i NOd it due to volumization and soundscape issues as well as some coherence stuff. i think overall most of my concerns have been addressed. there's a bunch of stuff i would really not do (the bass hammer-on at 0:50, the bell arps being so overtoney and lacking fundamental at 1:50 for a minute or so, the overall lessening of focus on the melodic material vs. other elements), but my concerns around volumization and soundscape were addressed in a satisfactory manner. there's some really neat ideas in here that are much more evident now that i can actually hear them, and the overall song structure is better for it as well. YES

big opening. lots of panning in the opening, and the sound is absolutely slammajamma'd - if the rest of the track sounds like this, it's an insta-no. it's so loud i can't even hear what is going on in some of the instruments. there's also a distinct cut at 100hz - look at this analysis centered around 0:32-0:47: so there's a lot of weird going on here. the lack of any bass frequency combined with such a hard compressor makes it hard to tell what's going on. so this needs another mixing pass before anything can be done with it. everything needs to get turned down by half at least, and then you need to figure out why nothing has any low end. half the time you do a drop or a more limited instrument scope it's just as loud as the full band tone - this is so heavily compressed. so i'm proceeding from the perspective of this being a no. but i'll look at the arrangement too. initial melodic material is from cannon ball and is pretty straightforward outside of the genre adaptation. the lead that comes in at 2:06 is not my favorite tone i've ever heard, and the following fill at 2:32 is the same as i heard earlier which was disappointing. there's a big break at 3:05 that isn't even visible in the waveform because it's so blown out (the organ by itself is the same loudness as...the entire band!). there's a repeated section at 4:20 that is very similar to 1:34 but does have a few new things thrown in to keep it new. overall i heard a lot of the same drum licks used multiple times, and i heard the same melodic material played the same way several times, which is disappointing given that you stated that you did a lot of this by hand (so you'd expect changes and more customization). but i think the adaptation and arrangement is sufficient. it's just mastered so loudly i can't really tell to be sure. NO

all doom remixes should be metal, don't @ me. opens aggressively, primarily focusing on the rhythmic riff at the beginning of the melodic section in the original as opposed to the arpeggio. that arp first comes in at 0:54, and it's adapted a bit to go over the top of the chord progression which is a fun idea. the leads have a bit less room tone on them than i'd expect, but they're clear and i like the combination of the lower lead and the arp at 1:35. there is a blastbeat section at 2:10 which is a tonal break from the first two minutes (which kind of do the same thing), and then we're into another arpeggio-driven section that's got real post-rock vibes with an extended range to the arpeggio lick. around the 3:15 mark i started to feel it was getting a little repetitive, and that's around when the outro was prepped and started, so timing-wise that's great. overall the band sound is solid. i wouldn't have minded a little more brightness in the bass tone, but i like the way the rest sounds so i'm willing to overlook that. as a band, it doesn't sound muddy or congested in the low mids. this is a fun track. nice job. YES

big opening, with harps, toms, strings, and some pads. some vocal lines come in at 0:23, and they're heavily panned and have some effected tails. track fills out quite a bit at 0:53 - the strings are still doing the same arp with no changes there, but there's some other orchestral elements. there's a choir synth at 1:14 (the limiter is pumping like crazy here) that carries a bit of melodic material, but still by this point the fanfare that's the main element of the original hasn't showed up yet. there's a big swell into 1:47 and we finally get the fanfare and melodic content in the brass. the limiter's again doing some serious woodshedding on this in this section. i noticed also that the string arps are still trucking through here with what sounds like the same material as earlier. the first big break hits at 2:40, and the arp content moves to a harp while the strings do some more rhythmic elements. the same vocal sample as before is used again here, there's another big swell into 3:33 that sounds very similar to the section at 1:46. the choir from 1:15 happens at 3:52, and then the same block of stuff used at 1:45 comes in again around 4:35 (right down to the initial tone in the lead instrument down low, continuing from an earlier lick that was in the earlier section but not used here). what i'm saying is that there's a lot of repetition, and that's not good. the track overall has a ton of repetition. it's pretty much the same vibe throughout (big toms, same rhythm and arps going in the vins and harp), although i'll note i really liked how patient you were with not bringing in the melodic material until almost two minutes in. for this to pass, the arrangement needs to have more spacing in it (it shouldn't be huge all the time, there needs to be contrast to make those huge sections matter), and it separately needs to have a significant mastering pass done to alleviate the limiter pressure. everything's simply too loud. turn it all down by half and then judiciously bring it up to balance. NO

beat hits at 0:10 and is particularly dank. lots of darker, detuned tones used. it's an interesting palette, but i see why larry says it sounds underwhelming. i like the switch to the double-time beat at 0:43, but really don't like the super-wide juno lead as the beat is super crisp and it's very wide and sloppy-feeling. there's also not a ton going on in the soundscape outside the lead, bass, and drums there. there's a shift at 1:40 to the next theme, and it functions as a nice break. the arp section at 2:06 was straight out of 1997 and i liked that. the beat picked up at 2:25 amidst a flurry of key changes and trucked through some more melodic material before we get a recap and then an outro. the outro coming from the half-time beat is a little low-energy, but it's still doing a fine job settling the track. the last chord (possibly unintentionally?) goes from major to minor at the very end which is not something i cared for. i actually think this is really fun. the detuning throughout is a stylistic choice and really fits the vibe you're going for here. nice work. YES

i voted NO before, complaining about technical elements. piano is a much richer tone overall that doesn't kill my ears with the upper right hand. i think the room tone of the instrument is better too, but it's not obvious to me if that's just a result of the piano tone being more accessible as it's not like you layered in concert hall spacing. like LT said - it still feels rigid in paces, there's still a few notes that aren't quite what i'd expect, and definitely doesn't feel like an acoustic piano (some of the hard note stops from a pedal lift are just very keyboardy), but this is much more listenable. thank you for taking the time to do some rework. YES

^ the original vote. i said the drums were rough and the arrangement was lacking. starts with some church bells, and then gets a nice groove pretty soon after in the drums and bass. the melodic material comes in at 0:18 and it's pretty much just the lead bells, bass, and drums. after a bit i could hear some pad work, but it's still pretty minimal in the soundscape. after once through the melodic material, there's a very sudden transition with a live bass playing the melodic material at 0:54 as a solo essentially. this drops out and goes back to the bells in a slow build with some choir elements. this is a nice section and way more edible than the earlier parts. drums come back in at 1:54 - and there's a descending line played by church bells (i just can't get over how the overtones sound when you do melodic lines with them...this is intrinsic to the carillon and not off-pitch, but i agree it always sounds wrong), and this switches over to the original bell tone for an outro. i find the instrumental choices to be not particularly cohesive and unifying, and the sudden shifts in style were a little surprising. i agree this has changed a long since the original that we heard and it's certainly better than it was. i think this is probably over the bar, but man, it's close. the earlier section sounds pretty simple. the second half brings it up. YES edit 12/20: I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this one yesterday. i think i'm changing my vote. I actually feel like darksim in that i can't point to a specific issue that is egregious, but when i compare this to the other winter track i judged yesterday (VQ's) the craft of that track, and the depth of composition, is just so much farther along. this is simple to a fault - simple is hard to do, and while there's some moments this is great, the entire first half is just a bell lead and a bass. this isn't Death on the Snowfield simple with the careful soundscape work and beautifully performed guitar, and that's what it'd have to be to pass. "no major mistakes" isn't good enough. NO