prophetik music

interesting stutter effect on the opening section. the intentional non-tonality initially is a neat idea. the build into 0:59 was a neat faux build - i really didn't expect it to delay as long as it did. there's a real underground-y kick that comes in at 1:13 and progresses it forward to a big hit at 1:39 with an acid bassline under it, and it's really cooking there. that's a neat moment. there's some more weird vocoding, some choppy drums, and lots of aural exploration in various directions until we get more sustained elements at 2:48 with the kick and bassline coming back. 3:44's sliced drums under really detuned arps was an interesting idea. 4:07's driving beat is again great, but admittedly the vocal elements in this section and previous sections felt pretty thin even considering their background status. there's some really neat swoopy sfx before the kick/bassline comes back in at 5:01. this keeps cooking for a while ("cover and simmer for ten minutes") until around 5:50 when other effects become the foreground, and we wind down over time as vocal elements take us out. as usual, this is a dense, sfx-heavy track with a lot of exploration (tbh almost too much) and a ton of variety in aural elements. it's certainly the most different take on FLWV that i've ever heard, and it's a great addition to the community. YES

never heard Everything Connected before but i love it. intro is very slow with some sfx and intentional artifacting. the initial riff with the aug 4 from FF8 is in the keys after the first big hit at 0:48, with the subsequent progressions weaving in and out of that pattern. the clock sfx is a nice addition around the time motif. we get a beat at 2:02 after a neat transition that might be a little heavy on highs, but it's still ticking through until it finally hits after some great sidechain action at 2:27. around the 2:50 mark, we finally get the first red wings cameo that i've heard. there's a drop at 3:15 or so, and we start getting some more off-time content which is a neat addition. this entire section from like 3:30 onward is really intense, there's a ton going on but it mostly stays audible throughout. there's the breakdown-rebuild section mentioned above, which is pretty neat, and then we're back into the melodic content at 4:16. this is still mostly compression of time, but there's definitely some red wings content in there. 5:04 is the last big hit (with a touch of distortion, not sure it's intentional). there's some significant falling action after this section. 5:30 or so is a significant shift - it's way slower, the beat is much more plodding intentionally, and the vibe is totally different. 6:07 is kind of the beginning of the end - it's a very clear shift away from tempo sync, with a lot more flexibility as the track finishes out. there's some very languid red wings motivic stuff in here but it's pretty stretchy. i cannot believe you did this in one week. the breadth of complexity is nuts here. there's certainly a bit of crunch in the mastering occasionally, but the quality of content in this track is incredible. you should probably stop doing this kind of stuff for free. YES edit 11/7: no complaints here. this song is a triumph.

upbeat intro. there's a bunch of fun effects going on in the beginning that build up nice into the drop at 0:23. there's some voiceover at 0:40 that i wasn't really expecting, but that sounds ok. there's some singing that comes in at 0:53, and i agree that the singing line does not fit the chords going on underneath. the chorus here is Db Ab/C Eb/G Ab, with an F/A at 1:15 as a sparkle chord (secondary dominant, this is a V7/ii which is a clever idea) into ii V as the turnaround. so that's pretty straightforward and has some fun stuff, like stepping from Ab to A to Bb. from a melodic perspective, the first line over Db and Ab is fine because it's F and quickly descends in a scalar fashion to a C, which is fitting with the key (though sitting on the Db over the Ab/C isn't a great sound). it then goes back up to the F over the Eb/G, which doesn't work. This goes down to Eb and Db, and by the time it gets to Db, it's over the Ab again (fourth over a major chord does not work since it conflicts a half step away with the third of the chord, a C). "let me be your love" here works because it's settling on the Eb, which is the fifth. the second time through the chorus, the melodic material again starts on an F, but this time sits on the upper part of that, and does it in an adjacent key. the melody goes F Ab Gb F, which is fine if the key was Db, but being in Ab the Gb and F don't sound right. Gb isn't in Ab, that's the flatted 7 instead, and so it should probably be a G, and then the line resolves with an Ab/C under it on F which isn't part of that chord. it sits on the F over the Ab for a bit and then goes up to the A for the F/A, which would be good but it gets there before the F/A happens so it sounds like an A against an Ab chord. the last part, "let me be your love", is F to Ab which is fine over Bbm, but sounds weird over Eb (since F is the 9th and Ab is the 11th and against the G in the Eb chord). /wordvomit the rest is more of the same. i like the vocal flips that are applied throughout, i just wish they were in a different key entirely. it's even more exacerbated at 2:27 because you've got the highly chromatic melodic material with the lead singing that's not quite in the key again. i won't do an entire breakdown since i don't have time before work, but i'd love to hammer out some concepts with this over a call, kris, since i think there's a dope track here if you just pitch-shifted the entire background up a fourth. not even kidding. the backing parts are excellent and i like the back and forth between the voiceover and singing. i also think that a few slight changes would still keep the melodic material recognizable but maybe hide the chromaticism from the singing elements. this is such a good idea. but i'm on larry's side. the vocals don't fit the track at all, but they could! NO

been a minute since i've heard this original. there is significant clipping right off the bat, continuing throughout - i don't mind the distorted tone of the drums, but getting that effect via effects is preferable to just cranking it too loud. there's some fun interplay between the horns and the drum parts, but i'll say that the lack of verb at all on the horns makes them sound like they're in a totally different world from the drums. speaking of the drums, the hats sound like they're part of a different kit entirely than the snare, and the kick is very noisy and doesn't have a lot of beater tone so it's hard to tell exactly when it hits. the delay effect on the drum doesn't help it around that either, i feel strongly that that's really making it hard to understand what's going on. the kit overall has more of a garagey sound which doesn't really fit the way the brass and organs sound. beyond that, i can't say i like the organ you're using for the bass - it doesn't have any bass presence that i can hear, and just kind of exists down there without any real meat. the arrangement itself is a clever idea. it's hard to focus on one melodic instrument due to how loud the stabs and drums are, but there's some neat ideas and countermelodic material going on in the organ and guitar lead. the ending is sudden after all the back and forth. if you went through and removed the delay effects from the drums, tightened up the kick tone, reduced the volume of the horns by half, balanced the levels significantly so that the melodic instruments weren't at most the third-loudest instrument you could hear, and leveled out the verb throughout, i think you'd have a much more effective mix that'd be ready for workshopping in the forum or on discord. right now it's pretty disjointed and difficult to follow, and the mastering is all over the place. NO

what excellent originals these are! i've never listened to this OST, clearly i need to now. neat opening. the downbeat isn't immediately clear which is neat, it requires active listening to catch where it's going. bass tone is great. there's some call and response going on with the lead elements which is a neat idea. the tinkling synths behind the section at 1:11 were also really delicate, i liked the nuance that provided. there's a break around 2:05 that shifts the vibe significantly. with no beat, it's all around rhythmic elements in the lead and pads, and it does a nice job driving it forward still. we get some filtro drums at 2:31 and that builds back to the melodic content of FttF at 2:49. after once through there, there's an outro fade-out. what a great track. i love the variety of synths used to represent the different tracks, and particularly like the attention paid to the excellent melodic material for both and how you interweaved them. the mastering is of course crystal-clear as is expected, and everything's mixed well so it's easy to hear what's what without anything getting covered up. excellent job YES

initial vibe of the track is just perfect. jorito's very good at this style ? i wouldn't have minded the snare being a bit snappier personally. sirenstar's lower voice really fits this style well. 0:54's hit sounds great - assuming that's jorito's guitar playing, and it sounds great. there's some points where sirenstar's voice sounds overly pitch-adjusted - 1:08 and the line at 1:40 stick out. some formant modification can help with that a lot, but sometimes you just need to take another pass. there's a break at 2:01 that is well timed, and subsequently we get the sax solo. i think the sax needed more reverb here - it's a little too forward in the mix compared to, say, The Midnight which was mentioned as an inspiration. that'd help with some of the rough edges in the tone too. 3:45's payoff chorus is great. the higher notes added in this time around are a great payoff after a longer track. would have loved to hear that chorus twice in a row there instead of just once. after this is a fadeout ending. overall this is really fun! it's not quite as polished as some of jor's other submissions, but overall it's a fun take on the style and the concept. nice work. YES

what a crazy idea for a track. the victory theme is immediately apparent, so that's not an issue. i like how you work in the fanfare in various ways into the backing parts. numoon sounds great, if a bit quieter than i'm used to for rap in some sections like at 1:28. similarly, sirenstar's chorus is really quiet and i can't understand a word that she's saying as a result. that's more of an issue than 1:28's volumization. an example is at 2:35 when she starts singing, the trombone in the background is notably louder than her. even her big moment at 3:00, i can hardly hear it. and then, of course, cyril is the cherry on top, i love it. i think overall this is probably over the bar. the volumization issues are a big deal to me, but the arrangement concept is so good and the performances are really solid overall. i'ma mark this as conditional with an ask to just bump up those few sections (1:28, 3:00) up a bit in the vox department. a few db shouldn't throw the rest of the track off and should be quick. CONDITIONAL YES edit 2/28: MW is right in that it's mostly pronunciation, specifically sirenstar's approximants like w. any consonant with more than one articulation point can be hard to relate in sung english. w's hard because the labiar element of the sound is unvoiced (that is, it doesn't have a tone) and so it often gets lost. that said, my issue is fixed so this is good by me. YES

seems like we've seen a lot of AA tracks lately. initial synth sound and natural fade is a neat idea. the kick sounds pretty bad, but the idea is also interesting. this repeats for over a minute - you may want to consider adding in more content in here, rather than have it repeat so often. the melodic material comes in at about 1:09. there's some replaced tones in the melody as you've arranged it, and i'm not sure those replaced tones are necessarily better (1:17 comes to mind). i'd strongly recommend sticking with the original's notes until you understand better how to manipulate chords underneath the melody to fit different ideas. there's not much here besides the lead synth, some drum elements, and a whistle. like kris said, a bassline would help a lot, as would other contextual elements like pads, more specific drum sequences, etc. the workshop forum and the workshop channel on discord would help a lot with this. NO

intro is similar to original but slightly modified. vocals indeed don't sound like they're in the same space as the original, and the chords at 0:52 really don't sound great. the instrumentation across the board in this intro section sounds pretty low-poly, and the vocals (especially when they go up higher) just don't sound good next to them. the vox is also like 2x too loud which doesn't help at all. the bass especially sounds pretty fake. 1:58 is a huge shift in style. vocals are still very loud here, drowning out everything else you might hear, and later the lead guitar does the same thing, just crushingly loud. there's strings and bass and other stuff behind it but i can't really hear it at all. there's a great break at 2:51 that has SC1 terran vibes for a few seconds, and eventually the guitar comes back in at 3:15 and it's more intense. that section sounds great since it's way better balanced. there's some setpiece swells and sfx, and this builds to a high note at 4:01 that fades, alongside some outro chords. i don't think this is above the bar. i think the arrangement concepts are neat but not 100% fleshed out - certainly the second half has a lot more going on and more interpretation than the first half, which felt very much like a sound upgrade with vox layered on top. i think the mixing across the board is very unbalanced, with lead elements waaaaay too loud compared to backing elements. the old trick of listening to tracks at different volumes and seeing what sticks out would be very useful here. NO

i know very little about this OST, but this is a really neat track so clearly i need to explore it more. track technically has no headroom, but even a little compression would have helped. intro is mallet percussion and winds. there's some hard panning going on and some machine-gun attacks are evident. We get some celli at 0:32 that are pretty loud in comparison to the more delicate percussion. this opening 1:30 or so feels like a version of In C with how repetitive each individual part is. at 1:38 we start to get some shifts in what's playing what. the right-ear mallet is finally volumized down at 1:50 - and then for some reason comes back just as loud, not sure what's going on there. the track continues to noodle through a variety of chords in a roughly linear fashion, and eventually we get the textures stripped back to just some glock before it picks up again and keeps doing what it was doing before. there's an extended outro where parts drop out over time and then it's done. this is a fine remix. the original is a neat track with little melodic material, and the remix does a good job of expanding on the textures and adding additional material here and there. i think that the remix misses when it comes to the overall shape and progression of the piece - it's less interesting to listen to than the original, and i'm having issues putting into words why - but it does what it needs to to be over the bar. YES

freya's theme is so good. one of my favorites from a truly great soundtrack. intro features the three against two pattern that makes freya's theme so neat, along with some lush strings. 0:48 brings in more electronic elements with the cursed earth drum pattern and some backing synths that are roughly similar to cursed earth's melodic material, and 1:07 brings back freya's melodic material represented in an augmented form, roughly twice time. the subsequent chippy lead for this theme is great. there's a big build into 1:54, and we get more of the cursed earth backing parts with freya over the top. the augmented version of freya's melodic material is so perfect for this mashup. 2:48 gives us a break from the big drums, and there's more of the musicbox and strings. this goes on for a while - over a minute! - and then we finally get the payoff loud section complete with the guitar ripping over the top of it. it's NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH of course (excellent pacing), and then we're in the outro with more musicbox. i think maybe the last two sections with musicbox were a bit long, but other than that i really enjoyed the variety of textures used and especially the way you interweaved the two themes. this is excellent. can't wait to listen to it again. YES

intro 15 seconds sound great, and the initial groove that you hit at 0:16 sounds great. the initial melodic material at 0:31 sounds pretty weak, though, both not loud enough to draw your ear and far too sustained with nothing to hold your ear after the initial notes. they're also panned right which is weird for a lead. there's a few key changes throughout that are not really what i'd expect to hear at any point. i'm not sure what the idea was - downward key changes are generally discouraged because they reduce energy rather than adding it, and that's what they do here. i agree with kris also that having the same beat on the entire track with no break in the chorded synth isn't really a good choice. the best anthem tracks have breaks, swells, builds, and falling action, and none of that is represented here. it's just the melody in a straight line in a string/winds combo synth that never changes with a beat under it, and then it ends. there's some fun cameo ideas but overall nothing to hold your ear nor make me want to listen again. this needs more arrangement. NO

long-tail reverb to open the track, with some bells playing the A melodic material. the initial beat hit at 0:31, and it took a second to grok what was going on between the drums and the bass since there's a lot going on in the same place EQ-wise. guitar lead through here is heavily effected and has some fun ideas. this section gives way to the B material, with some enveloped guitar work that reminds me of jason truby's solo guitar stuff. this continues to build through 2:04 when we get a sudden shift. drums bring us back in and get the ball rolling again at 2:06. there's some heavier guitar that isn't mixed into the rest of what's going on well, but i like the idea of it. we get more of that at 2:56 and the electric still is too sharp to fit into the backing parts, but i like what the lead is saying here. i unironically like the rhythm guitar a lot better at 3:30 when you're playing with the filter on it ? there's some really heavy fun parts starting at 3:33 onward. drums are way more complex, guitar lead is way more complex, and the driving energy is great. bass is a little light here but at least i can hear it. this goes to an outro using a plectral instrument with some reversed tails and then it's done. i love the exploration that this track has throughout. this is a quirky original, and you committed to that with your approach. i think there's some nitpicks around how you chose to master it, but the guitar work is great and the overall approach is really interesting. i was a little on the fence early on but you won me over by midway through the track. YES

there's some playing with time in the intro which is fun. then the beat comes in, but it actually hasn't at 0:47, and is super confusing to hear what's going on! it took me several listens to get the hang of what was going on there before the 1:03 mark when the beat actually hits. there's actually not a ton happening when the melody's cooking at 1:20 or so - it's just drums, bass, and lead with no pads. it sounds surprisingly empty behind all the verb and room sound. 1:54 is a nice break and build. 2:27 has some notes that i'd call not ideal overall, but i like the idea of having a break section that's different before layering in the melodic elements again. 3:16 does a nice job mixing up what's being played without changing synths too much, and agree with larry about 3:59 - feels real old-school there, as does 4:38 when the lead's doing the melody/chording stutter pattern. the ending isn't anything special but it's fine. this is a nice take on a neat track. i agree with larry that it's certainly not mixed perfect, but it's fun and has some clever arrangement ideas that give it more staying power than i initially thought it'd have on first listen. YES

i am gonna say it - i love the idea of a super fast edm track based on this track (and most of this soundtrack). the OST's soundtrack is made for jcore or happy hardcore or something silly like that. unfortunately, the execution here is a bit lacking. there's an intro, a loop for the A theme that's about nine seconds long and a loop for the B theme that's about nine seconds long, and they are painted into the track in various places, and that's it. there's some small countermelodic elements that are brought in occasionally, but not nearly enough to save the arrangement. so this is way too repetitive for posting right now, but i think there's still great ideas here! i'd love to hear more subtractive arrangement in the melodic line, new synths brought in, and some more interpretation of the approach (new chords or doubletime melodic content or something would be really neat). right now it's just like 20s of music repeated for two minutes. NO

intro vibe is real nice. i like the EP work the most, i think. the drums are loud enough to be distorting, especially the kick, and it doesn't sound intentional. the bass feels really nice though and so does the brassy pad synths that come in halfway through the loop. this loops after about 1:15 of content, so it's nowhere near long enough for OCR, and 50%+ repeat content isn't something we can take. but the final version with voices and a bit more personalization to the second half would be a welcome addition. NO

intro is so meaty, i love it. this opening section is super metal-cinematic, like what you hear in The Astonishing or something. the section at 0:37 is a clever take on the antipyretic intro, same with the how you brought in battle on the bridge at 0:58. lead guitar work at like 1:30 is great. 1:55 brings back the antipyretic theme, but i like the reptition you use to reinforce some of the more fun rising elements of the theme. the horns at 2:25 are pretty obviously synthy, but i feel like that was at least partially intended. the 2:59 groove is probably my favorite in the track. the shift at 3:13 right after is super significant, though. i don't mind at all what's happening but the lack of prep for that shift makes it feel more like an overture to a prog album than a cohesive whole. 4:01's guitar solo is dope as expected. the first main descending riff is so good, same as 4:16 through 4:26. 4:35ish, the continued more desperate vibe of this section is really exciting and a good progression towards the ending, and the build and sustain at 5:03 is perfect. outro is pretty fast for such an epic track, but overall fine. easy to see why this won a gold medal. FFT has some excellent tracks (for such a long soundtrack, too) and this really highlights some of the excellent themes that sakamoto wrote for it. excellent work. YES

intro in winds is beautiful, very delicate piano work. the ensemble at 0:36 is also really delicately handled. the strings at 1:00 are a little heavy-handed compared to what we've heard up to there, but are nicely handled and fun to listen to. the flute right at about 1:34 is a bit sharp. the swell into 1:36 is great, really rich, and the addition of celli is a great pick there. there's a break right at 2:00 with tons of plectral elements which fit really well with the percussive elements that come in soon after. 2:49's the beginning of the end, with continued excellent performance elements in both the flute and vin. love the air fade in the flute to end it, very evocative. easy vote. this is a clever arrangement that does an excellent job setting up some great performers to do their thing. great concept. YES

listening to v2. opening really benefits from the live parts. 0:41's entrance of live elements sounds great, really evocative playing from GotW. the complexity of the background is really nice, especially the density of various rhythmic elements. the chopping on the arpeggio is particularly fun. melodic material hits at 1:13. the whistle lead's a little overused by this point, but luckily it's used sparingly. there's a beat break with GotW again at 1:45, and this is again really pretty. the timing is a little off at 1:59, but other than that this is an effective break. more vox parts doing their H36T sample pack imitation at 2:10, and this section noodles around for about a half-minute through some really neat textural elements. 3:02 is easily the most upbeat and energetic section of the entire song, with a long build before it really prepping your ears. there's a squelch right at 3:02 that i'm not 100% sure is intentional. GotW is going to town here though which is just awesome, and the really crunchy drums at 3:25 are perfect. 3:19 there's a big dropoff, and it's more noodles for the last minute of the track. the fadeout is super extended and winds up highlighting some kind of weird notes from sirenstar, but overall it's effective at setting you down after the intensity around like 3:20. the shape of this track is really nice, and of course there's a preponderance of the original throughout. the track sounds pretty good overall and only has that one squelch where there's anything that may be a little messy on the mastering side. this is an easy pass. YES edit 3/13: the arp at 0:41 overwhelms the live flute and i want to hear the flute more. melodic line at 1:13 is a touch quiet. it feels louder when it goes up the octave and that fits better there. live flute at 1:45 is a little quiet compared to the instrument that's mirroring it. 1:59's timing being off is still confusing...would be easy to fix in melodyne imo. the melodic line at 3:02 lacking any pitch lfo/vibrato is noticeable despite it being an intentional choice to mirror the game's iconic lead tone (tbh i have the same complaint earlier when this is used but it wasn't as noticeable there). i YES'd it before and i'll do it again here, of course - this is despite my nitpicks an incredible piece, and whatever voodoo you did on the backside of this one only made it more powerful.

intro faux strings into synths was a really nice feel. the track builds in a very exciting way through the piano, synths, guitar, then drums up until 0:45 when the beat really kicks in. the melodic content entering at 0:57 is excellent. the lead gets buried once or twice when it's doing lower stuff, but overall it soars over really excellent backgrounds, be them synth-heavy or guitar-heavy. short break at 1:43, and then we get the guitar entering with edgar's theme again. i like the articulations used here, the space added really compliments the background's staccato synths. the hit at 3:13 that brings the track to the beginning of the end was *chef's kiss*, and the overtone-heavy synths leading us out were interesting. arrangement is great - i honestly had to go back and figure out where Place of Memory was because it fit so well into the FF6 track. and from a mastering perspective, the driving, heavy, darker atmosphere of this one really works well with the more martial tone of edgar's theme. really excellent work. YES edit 10/23: i have no concerns about updated mix. still a positive vote from me.

intro starts off lacking bass and that continues through the initial drum intro. snare especially is pretty loud. 0:37 brings in some melodic synth work, but it wasn't immediately apparent what that lead synth was doing relative to the originals. there's a break right away that does some minor enemy encounter noodling (which is all that track is anyways). when the rest of the band kicks up, the bass is way meatier and the various swells sound great. overall this section feels pretty loud and i think there's some pumping going on, which isn't ideal. i do love the space in the synths - the hard rhythmic elements really sound great. there's a break at 2:58 for some arpeggiated chords and dramatic chord blocks. 3:27 brings in some synth guitar and fun bass effects around the guardian battle theme. this section is also way blown out on the mastering side - there's some solid blue lines on the indicator here. 4:45 gets even worse, it's just nothing but mush and i can't understand anything that's going on. it does this until the end, and i honestly can't tell if the ending is coming because it's so noisy right before it. from an arrangement perspective, this works. there's some original work in here but a preponderance of the source material, and there's a lot of variety of dynamics and textures. from a mixing and mastering perspective, this needs tons of work. the entire block of content from 1:47 through 2:58 and 4:45 through the end need to be reworked entirely. one thing i noticed is that you didn't do any volume automation - when an instrument came in, it was mixed for the largest/loudest section, and there was no flexibility around that. i recommend turning everything down and then carefully bringing levels up on a per-track basis in individual sections so as to craft a more specific soundscape for each section vs. a one-size-fits-all approach. fix the levels and this is a yes from me. right now it's not there. NO

intro winds sounded fine, but the supporting strings were pretty quiet. guitar and drums enter at 0:26, and the snare's really loud (the bass is also fairly quiet given that you commented on it specifically?). orchestral parts are written in a fun and aggressive manner, which is great, but literally everything after 0:26 has no bass other than what comes in from the chugs after they hit their tone. it honestly feels like something's getting trimmed out with how it keeps peeking back in occasionally. 1:28 or so the organ lead takes over, and the orchestration shows that it's not particularly real. the solo section at 1:42 is nice, and the subsequent crazy motorcycle elements are great. the less dynamic/fast writing for the orchestral parts cover the things that your sample set isn't great at which is a positive. 3:15's brass are rough, super fake, but i like what they're doing. 3:38's ending section was very sudden. some more build to it would have been really nice. i'm not passing this specifically because the bass is inaudible for most of the track. there's no guts to anything, the distorted guitar chugs at 2:15 have more bass content than the actual bass and kick throughout. that said, there are other issues here, including the very loud snare, the orchestral sample usage being pretty consistently fake sounding, and the overly quick ending. i think however that the concept is really neat and would love to see another take on it. NO

starts off with some needly synth work and synth guitar. imitates the opening of the original surprisingly well. at 0:20 we get a heavy beat with some keys mirroring the original's melody. this is pretty cover-ish, there isn't immediately any recognizable arrangement of the original here, just palette swaps. i'm at about 2:45 and this is pretty much the original in a row. there haven't been any changes of the drums (which are still very loud and don't sound at all like the rest of the soundscape), the lead instrument, keys, and synth guitar haven't changed or had any dynamic contrast to this point, and it's not changing really at all. the drums are crushingly loud and have a ton of room sound on them, and nothing else sounds like it's even close to being in the same place as them. they're all much cleaner. drums are also very boomy, lots of low mid content that just runs over the piano and guitar among other instruments. the track kind of just does the same thing for nearly five minutes before having a fadeout outro. unfortunately this isn't the kind of arrangement we're looking for at OCR. this track does not display transformational arrangement - it's the same instrumentation as the original, about the same speed, and does the same notes pretty much across the board in the same order. i'd encourage you to review the submission standards (specifically 4.2) to see more what kind of arrangements we're going for. NO

fun chippy opening. guitar and band comes in at 0:25, and goes through the initial loop. the bass and kick are sitting in the same range, so it feels extra boomy, but the guitar sounds nice and crisp. the trumpet comes in on the melodic content at 0:54, and through here the heavy bass and kick overlap is more noticeable. trumpet is sequenced nicely. there's a break at 1:20 for some orchestral parts with more trumpet on top. this is a neat idea to try something different. after that, we're immediately back into the chiptune part on top of the band accompaniment - two simultaneous copypastas! not something i expected. there's more combinations of previously sequenced material layered in different combinations for the rest of the track, and then a filtered outro. the heavy bass overlay in the first third or so and the last minute being copypasta isn't my favorite, but it's not enough to really sink this. the middle orchestral section is great and i found myself wishing there was more of that! this certainly isn't as fresh and across-the-board high quality like your more recent works, but i think this is fine. YES

harp opening is beautiful, if a little skewed off-center to the right. the initial strings aren't particularly realistic. after the swell at 0:33, though, there's a lot more richness in their tone and it sounds a lot better. there's some really nice swells and interplay in the harp parts in here. at 1:21 the cello comes in, and the audio is still skewed to the right ear a lot. it's much louder and clearly is hitting a limiter gate on that side several times. i also wouldn't have realized this was a live cello due to the doubling in the tone. there's a great brass swell going into 1:59, and the addition of percussion there was a great addition. the vocals sound great too, although the lower part occasionally has some pitchiness on a few of the sustains. there's a sustained diminuendo that's a great setup for the final big push starting at 3:14. i appreciated psamanthes's chest voice through here, it's really rich and fills in the overall timbre nicely. there's a short outro in the harp and it's done. this is beautiful! there's a few nits here and there, but my only real complaint is the heavy emphasis on the right ear through maybe 1:59. despite that complaint, it's definitely above the bar and is worth posting. there's a richness to this orchestration that's just so evocative. YES