prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

the quality of the samples for each isn't good enough, but we can review the arrangement at least. opens with some flutter tonguing in the flute on a sustain before the other members of the trio come in. the trumpet's the lead instrument initially, and i like the articulation and personalization of the trumpet part. the three instruments are all pretty centered which makes it hard to tell them apart. there's a wrong note at 0:46, and again in the trill at 1:01. the backing trumpet part at 1:08 isn't really idiomatic to the instrument (be better in the flute actually). it's over very quickly. there's a lot of interesting arrangement ideas throughout, so that's good. what's here however isn't really enough (we usually require at least two minutes, and considering the opening, this is less than 1:40). i'd encourage you to find ways to extend the arrangement that aren't just looping between the A and B themes from the original. similarly, finding more ways to make this yours - chord changes, more variety in the backing elements that aren't the same as what's in the original - would be a big help with extending the overall duration. from a technical perspective, you're doing a nice job with the instruments that you have, but anytime you're working with something so exposed, instrument quality becomes paramount. i couldn't hear enough of the flute to tell, but the violin and trumpet both don't sound particularly realistic despite a lot of attention paid to attacks and cutoffs. separately, i like the combination of violin, flute, and trumpet, but in general the trumpet overpowers everything else (as expected), and the scoring and range of the other two instruments doesn't help that. finding a way to balance your three instruments (whatever they wind up being) is very important in a small ensemble like this. this is a surprisingly good arrangement given the duration, but it's definitely not there yet. NO

opens with some heavily filtered and effected synths handling the initial arpeggio. i like the shift in tempo as i think the slower tempo gives it more gravitas. there's some beefy bass synths and taiko used as well - the buzz on that bass synth is fantastic, i love it. the slower tempo allows for some more space in the articulated lines in the background too which is nice. the mix is pretty noisy with all the edge on the different synths chosen, and the bass's first overtone around 100hz is very boosted which makes it dense down low. there's a bit of a falloff/break and then we get another repetition of the initial arp and chord progression at 0:59. this sounds to my ears very similar to 0:23 but there's some subtle differences in the chord progression as it goes on. this probably could have been trimmed a bit so that we get to the melodic material that comes in at 1:35. there's a very loud and resonant pad through here that's crushing most of the background elements. the melody's in a bell-like pad that doesn't seem to have much ring to it so it's a little hard to trace as well. 2:33's really the first significant shift in the background elements for the entire track, and we get some high strings that have been brutalized. this progresses through to an outro that is mostly the initial arpeggiated instrument's release sustain automating back, and it's done. i really like the initial presentation of the arrangement - the buzzy bass, the heavily effected arpeggio, and eventually the limited percussion that comes in. i think it sounds pretty over-loud initially, but if anything that accentuates how distorted the elements are. but then it didn't do anything for several minutes =( there's no dynamic variation, and the extremely loud and pushed mix just accentuates that by crushing any possible dynamic contrast into sameness. it feels heavily compressed. i also found that by the 1:35 mark as we were getting close to the actual melody showing up that my ear was getting tired of the same bass, arp, and percussion elements since they'd played for nearly that entire time in a row. that was a golden opportunity to mix up the instrumentation a bit or at least freshen up the rhythmic elements of what was playing, but it's more of the same, and that doesn't change the entire rest of the piece. i like this concept a lot overall. i love that you managed to wait for 90s before bringing in any melodic elements and you focused so much on the backing elements so much. i love the highly complex effecting on the arpeggio and the bass's edge to the tone. however, even when the track isn't being repetitive (like the slight changes in chords between the first main phrase at 0:22 and the second at 1:00), it feels repetitive because nothing ever changes until halfway through the piece, and the balance at that point is way off. it's definitely possible i'm making perfect the enemy of good here, but i think that the mashed mix and lack of dynamics combined with a highly repetitive background (when that's what's carrying the work due to a lack of melodic content) puts this in the not-quite-there-yet range. i don't think it needs much to be stellar. NO

in listening to this entire thing with an open mind, i do hear where there's a few specific thematic references to the original track (1:05, 2:21 for example). there's also some highly transformative sections, like the repeated descending section in the bass line that occurs several places (example: 2:06), which i wouldn't have tabbed being from this without knowing the context but understand where you came from after reading it. however, most of the track isn't recognizable in the slightest. this isn't a matter of not understanding the serial representation of the set you're using as far as i can tell - it's just that most of this is unintelligible. what's the point of speaking in tongues if there's no one to interpret? there's some genuinely interesting ideas in here - 3:31 for example is a pretty ripping take on the initial descending melodic line, with the frenetic sfx in the background and the very fast (if extremely repetitive) drums. but there's no usage of song form anywhere in this, there's no real synth design, and for the most part the master is "same volume for everything throughout". it's more reminiscent of the Undertale flowey fight's inanity, but that was far more defined and intentional than this is. this comes across as wild musings more than an intentionally crafted work. ultimately this falls short of several elements of the submission standards, but 4.3. the most: sorry, but this isn't something that we can post here. NO OVERRIDE

i've owned risk of rain for over a decade but never listened to the OST - clearly i've been missing out. opens with some percs and guitar chords. when the bass comes in, it's in the same range as the guitar, which is problematic from a clarity standpoint. there's also a heavy delay effect on it, which is a fun sound, but makes it tough to hear the differences between the two instruments. some EQ work there could help, as could changing the voicing of the guitar chords. bass line occasionally gets out of time a bit, as does the lead riff at 0:48. track coasts a bit until we get some new chords around the minute mark, and then the fast section at 1:14. i like the intensity in the drums here for sure, but the rhythm guitar sounds super flat and indistinct. it's hard to really hear anything that's going on, and the very simple guitar lead with no intensity increase from the earlier section doesn't help much either. the track goes through a quiet section and a fast section again, and then back to the B section of the slower section. there's some sound choices here that i don't think work - everything's very indistinct and dull. there's a short rhythmic section to end it, and it's done. there's a real early darren korb vibe going on here. if i heard this song while playing Bastion as it is right now, i'd think it was mixed poorly, but it wouldn't have stood out. but i like the rhythmic focus alongside the groove. i think right now none of the instruments sound good in terms of mix - the drums are lacking punch, the bass's delay effect and EQing make it unclear, the rhythm guitar parts are super indistinct and poorly mixed (at least double-track them!), and the lead guitar sounds very blase and simple. some better EQing and some padding instrumentation would do wonders to fill out what's going on, as well as probably changing the octave that the rhythm guitar parts are based around so it's not clashing with the bass. beyond that, you'll want to identify ways to add more ear candy to the arrangement. right now it's very straightforward in that each instrument never really changes what it's doing. personalizing the arrangement more with drum fills, interstitial riffs in the lead guitar, etc. will help a lot with making the arrangement feel like it's progressing and moving somewhere instead of standing still. i really dig the vibe, but tbh it sounds too garagey and more like a scratch or demo track right now. a cleaner mix and a more fleshed-out arrangement will really help a lot. NO

Instruments used were electronic drums and electric guitars & basses. All instruments were played & recorded live by me. No sequencing was used. Some potentially questionable aspects of the song were deliberate stylistic choices. I have my suspicions about what may need to be changed or improved, but for now I'll let the music speak for itself. I welcome any questions, criticism, advice, and other feedback. Games & Sources Original Track: Tropic of Capricorn -- Original Composer: Chris Cristodolou2024 Game Details: Risk of Rain, 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_of_Rain Game Soundtrack: https://chrischristodoulou.bandcamp.com/album/risk-of-rain

opens with a big wall of synths and most notably a really unique snare sound. there's no real movement on the synths or anything and they're pretty static, although they do follow the chord progression. a bit of a shuffle works into the beat around the 0:27 mark. melodic material enters in the bass at 0:44, and around here i noticed that the drums feel like they're using the same few tom fills every four and eight bars. this is really obvious in this section because of how static the background is. we do get some more fuzz on the lead synth over time and i like that movement and change a lot - but the drums doing the same thing the whole time really becomes obvious and irritating after a while. there's some offbeat material coming in around 2:05 and that's a nice little added touch. i think there was more room for movement and interstitial stuff between 0:44 and 2:30 or so when the initial melodic material reaches the peak but i did like the big change to the synth over time. there's a bridge with some gated stuff, and then it builds into a big melodic section at 2:55. the drums here lack some punch but i like the synth lead and the fuzz on everything. i sort of assumed this track was coming to a close here and then realized there was another three minutes of material! so the change at 3:38 was welcome. again the drums are on autopilot which is really irritating once you notice it. this section goes on longer than i'd expect it given how repetitive the melodic material. there's a fill that kinda sounds like dragging your finger down the keyboard like a gliss, and then a neat bridge that features a lot of gated elements. i think there was some opportunity here to really get different with the synth work, but it stays fairly static in the section itself. 5:03 brings in some organ, but again it's just going through the chord progression and doesn't add a ton during the section. we get the gliss tom fill again, and a bit of a callback to the opening in the chords. the snare here is super echoey as a transitional element and while i didn't care for the sound i did like the use of it to hallmark a change. my issues here are twofold. one is that it's a very long track but doesn't really have a lot of content. each major section feels like it could have been halved in terms of time and it'd make it a much more succinct statement overall. my second issue ties into this and that's that there's not a lot movement in each section. there's a lot of autopilot drums and repeated fills, and usually what you hear in the first few seconds of a section is what you're going to hear for the next 30s+. that's boring =( the overall static nature of the arrangement method really is highlighted in how repetitive the melodic material is - if it'd been a more active line with more chords, it wouldn't have been obvious, but the original's super repetitive as it is. i think overall the track sounds good and i can hear what's going on. for the most part, the synth choices are fine (although i don't like the reliance on choices with no or very limited movement over sustains). and i like the pop of the drums, i just wish they had more power to them in a few places. i'd need to see a lot more complexity to each section - or a significant trimming of it - before this would be at the bar for me. NO

Yet another remix of DOOM. I'm submitting 1 or 2 more remixes from the series in the upcoming weeks since I haven't seen any of these and a new Doom game is coming in May 15th of this year, I hope this date can be taken in consideration for OCR release pipeline if this or other of my arrangements are accepted. I already saw "Dark Toxin" was accepted. Thanks guys! For this one I fixed the tempo at 88BPM (the original is almost the same) The genre is an Industrial Rock/Dark Synth mood that really fits the pace of the song maybe even some mid tempo at the last quarter of the track. Think about a blend between Rammstein (without the guitars), Powerglove, and Rezz but less aggressive. I hope you'll enjoy it. Games & Sources Doom II. Robert C. Prince. - The Demon's Dead (1994)

i would actually say exactly the same thing about where i am right now as a musician =) opens with some arpeggiated elements and the concept of a beat. we start getting the funkiness that i associate with damon's music soon after. 0:22 has some other instrumentation coming in - there's some really fun filtered attacks on a lot of these synths and that causes some neat soundscapes to pop up here and there. melody starts in a woody vibe sound at 0:44, and it's a little far back and to the left so it's harder to hear. reducing the vibrato on it too will help it pop forward in the mix more - kind of like the wind instrument that comes in after it (i think i have that vst also, it's a classic!). this section's a touch loud, i think, and everything feels a bit squeezed but just a bit. fun fill going into the drop at 1:50, and this leads into another recap of the melodic material. 2:15 brings in the B theme, and the transition here is a little sudden. this might have been an opportunity to change up the drums some more. 2:58's another transition, this time to a more muted feel as the track starts to wind down. some sound design here or even a cymbal on the transition would have helped. the ending is similarly unprepared and just kind of happens, which is a real bummer as i think it really would have benefitted from a real ending. it's fun hearing how damon's style has changed over the years, and also hearing what's stayed the same. i really like the focus on fun drums and unique textures. the lack of an ending is a big deal for me, but i think what else is here is enough to carry this over the bar. YES 2/2 edit: adding in some more transitional elements and a real ending makes this so much better. bravo. still a yes but much stronger.

opens with some wide synths. the kick rhythm is a little confusing as there's no beat here to hang your hat on, so it's not clear where the down beat is initially. the melody comes in at 0:24, and you're right, it is questionable. polytonality is a technique i recognize, but it really doesn't work here - it just sounds off-key outright. 0:49 is where the track seems to be more settled. there's a recap of the beginning with some low synth blurbs at 1:13, and those synths kind of step on each other since they're all in the same freq range. the beat picks up at 1:38 and this has a pretty neat vibe once it gets trucking. i'll admit i don't really hear the original in this section. 2:27's lead synth doesn't really make a ton of sense to the rest of what's going on around this section, and it's so highly embellished i definitely wouldn't have caught that it's a reference to the opening without calling it out. right after the main riff here, the track just continues hammering that one note for a pretty long time without significant adds. the melody comes back finally - again, pretty heavily ornamented - and then gets some weird notes around the 3:28 point before the track is suddenly done. so right off the bat - i think that the arrangement has legs. you've got some really creative concept work behind each part of the track (to be honest, probably too much - if a book is needed to understand a 4-minute piece, you're not doing enough as the arranger). there's a lot of padding that can be trimmed, and you need to work on transitions and the opening sections so that they're approachable and understandable. that said, the instrumentation isn't close to being there. if this is supposed to be using some retro sound chip, ok, but evaluating this as a pickup piece of music, the audio quality isn't up to par. there's buckets of free stuff that's better across the board out there, and separately there's a lot of mixology you can do to get better sounds out of the instruments you're choosing. i think that some serious time in the workshop discord would help a ton on this, and i think that some time spent finding ways to get better sound quality from all of your instruments is helpful too. you can do nostalgic with real synths and make it sound like a modern song still. NO

The original idea for turning this into a battle theme was based on the first "tutorial" style battle in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, where you are in the school yard and proceed to have a turn-based snowball fight to learn the basics. By adding in some higher ends with the use of analog generators and additional samples, I wanted to bring a more nostalgic wintry feel that's accentuated in certain sections and more subtle in others. My track 0:00, source track n/a Since this is a battle theme conversion, I wanted to convey a build-up of tension similar to that of the first 17 seconds of the [REF1] adaptation with a bit of an industrial energy, given we might be stretching the boundaries a little to provide them with basic augmented reality. Battle preparations, taking their places on the field outside Seventh Heaven. Unrelated to the source material but it helps convey the additional discordance that is being introduced. My track 0:24, source track 0:13 The first reference to the main motif in Barret's theme, using the same notes as the original but with less separation between them. This could be considered to be one of the most contentious points of this track but after much contemplation, I do feel that this off-key mix of the lead and rhythm sections compliments everything that comes after it in my submission. The first 37 seconds from [REF3] has a great build-up and was one of the main inspirations behind bringing together the same tones of Barret's Theme while also introducing some discordance and disparity between the notes. Reducing the time between the notes also accentuates this greatly. You could consider it as a warming up phase of the battle - participants haven't really found their footing yet and are fumbling a few of their throws. You can't expect to perform perfectly from the very start and "feel the flow" as a certain character would say, referencing a previous comment about "Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL". My track 0:49, source track 0:39 This is my interpretation of a more traditional upbeat JRPG progression - possibly something you'd see on the Super Nintendo in a game like Chrono Trigger with those organ samples. I do enjoy making some interesting transitions to other similar styles where possible, without ruining the cohesion too much. I hope that it doesn't jarring when dancing between multiple ideas within a single track such as this. In this instance, I think the transitions do make sense and it's something that I continue to explore within compositions and arrangements such as these. My track 1:13, source track n/a 0:49-1:10 from [REF3] showed that I wanted to have a classic lull in proceedings - something to begin building the tensions once again as I feel that is particularly important when it comes to battle themes as opposed to general area or town tracks. Music from the Halo and Spyro the Dragon franchises showed me how important that was when it came to the works composed by O'Donnell/Salvatori and Copeland respectively. Having something that constantly "all-out" constantly active would be far too much for the listener and it's almost impossible to keep up that level of activity without losing what really makes your track sing, introducing too much repetition or adding melodies for the sake of it. I do enjoy employing negative space where possible - less applicable with battle themes but very much underappreciated in atmospheric tracks too. My track 1:38, source track 1:05, 1:27 The middle of the track also serves as the very meat of the experience - what I feel really makes this a battle theme. The contrast between the high notes once again and that lower-pitched lead along with a slightly more "active" bassline are what brings this entire sequence together. There is still a slight mix of hopeful yet combative energy coming from this. Maybe it's the determination that is such an important trait of being a member of Avalanche, never to give up regardless of one's position however bleak it may look. It also makes a callback to the very end of the loop during those overlapping lead chords which I think works particularly well and isn't overpowering. The repositioning of this element of the source track allows us to add our own interpretation of an outro. In the second half of this section, the complexity is reduced and the higher notes are removed, allowing for a more natural progression to the following section - a second lull in proceedings. My track 2:27, source track 0:00 A cheeky little callback to the very beginning of the source material. A chance to cement a wintry feeling by introducing a clean high-pitch square instrument with a touch of reverb. Also a chance to dance around the keyboard a little too! I beefed up the bass too by introducing a low guitar sample which adds a nice counterpoint to the especially higher octave blips from that square. While it references the beginning of Barret's theme, it also vaguely resembles that of the lower notes included in the main motif but this may have been by design from Uematsu-san. My track 3:01, source track 0:13 The second callback to the main motif in Barret's theme, this time without the disparity between the lead notes and the bass/chord tones to convey a culmination of everything that's happened up to this point. It's getting to the end of the skirmish and everyone's ready to battle one more round to see who is victorious! Also including an additional slightly heavier counterpoint to the lead instrument to really drive home that upbeat energy at this point. My track: 3:26, source track n/a "Wait, what's that in the distance - is that part of the simulation or are those people really running in fear towards our location?" A harsh reminder that yes, this is still the Sector 7 slums and some things have or will never change. One minute, you can experience utter joy but at any moment, that euphoria can be stripped from you entirely, leaving nothing but the reality of your existence. Shinra still know about your location and things won't stay the same forever - for better or for worse. My track: 3:35, source track n/a The question remains - is Avalanche able to prevent Shinra from dropping the plate that exists above Sector 7's entirety? Instead of looping around to close off the track, I wanted to leave a question for the listener to ponder as a small cliffhanger. A very short and minor reference for the ending sequence 0:44-0:54 from [REF2] helped to shape this. While it doesn't carry the same sense of "almost" impending destruction or loss, it is still somewhat unnerving. Video references: [REF1] 壱番魔晄炉 Battle Edit (Mako Reactor 1 - Battle Edit) Reference [REF2] Dead End (Final Fantasy VIII) Reference [REF3] 忍びの末裔 Battle Edit (Descendant of Shinobi - Battle Edit) Reference Games & Sources Source track: Barret's Theme (Final Fantasy VII) In a way, I think Barret's theme from Final Fantasy VII has been associated with the beginning of the game, almost a part of the tutorial if you will. The original track is very friendly and upbeat which I feel matches the energy of the start of the game - a successful raid on the Mako Reactor and Cloud, along with the friends in Avalanche, has safely made it back to the (currently) safe slums. They are a very close-knit group whom I believe would definitely enjoy playing competitive sports and other games outside with each other, especially with the younger generation like Barret's daughter Marlene. Now, I know that the Sector 7 Slums are part of the Midgar undercity and many of those residents would never see the light of the surface but if it ever did snow outside Seventh Heaven, this would be the battle theme that played while both teams attempted to pelt each other with compressed snow. Maybe some snow was able to be miraculously preserved with Mako energy after shipping it in from the Icicle Inn from the northern continent or with all their technological advances, a simulation could be developed that converts a small area into a playing field, much like the augmented reality duels from the "Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL" anime. I know, it's a bit of a reach with it being the slums but I would feel that a close unit like Avalanche might put together some funds for something like this for the younger generation, especially given Barret's relationship with his daughter Marlene. He's just a big old softie with a tough outer shell for sure. As the original theme is more a summation of Barret Wallace's overall character, I wanted to skew it towards a battle theme with additional instrumentation and more traditional percussive beat. To do this, I wanted to take some additional inspiration from Nobuo Uematsu's recent arrangements for FF7R. There were two tracks that really stood out for me that take an original area theme and turns them into an incredible battle theme, coined the "Battle Edit" - "Descendant of Shinobi" and "Mako Reactor 1" from Final Fantasy VII Remake. The adaptations from Uematsu-san were what inspired me to try doing something along the same lines. They are an absolute masterstroke in how to turn a cheerful, slower-paced track into something incredibly hype-inducing and combative in nature.

Hey everyone! It has been a while. I hope all is well. Due to some big changes in my career, my focus shifted a bit from making music for the past a couple of years, so I have been relatively quiet on the forums. I wanted to return with a new and improved style, so I took some time to read over comments and feedback from previous WIPs and posted songs, and really tried to figure out what I'm lacking in comparison to other remixers (A LOT). I also wanted to learn more about FL Studio, mixing and mastering, and how to use my Native Instruments samples better. I'm still struggling a bit, but I think I am making good progress. Now, as far as my remix is concerned, I have been having trouble trying to decide exactly what genre this mix would fall under. Maybe, chillhop(ish)? I really don't know... I just make music that feels right, ya know? I made 3 different versions of this particular remix, and I think this version is my favorite one. Though, this is a remix of a Sonic Frontiers song, it was actually inspired by the "Rusty Ruins" track from Sonic 3D Blast (Sega Saturn ver.) and one of my older remixes that was posted waaaaay back in the day, "Day & Night." In previous remixes, I struggled making my music sound natural and non-robotic, so this time around, I focused on adding more variation to note velocities and timing. I still suck at playing my midi keyboard, but I decided to keep some of the minor mistakes and imperfections in the mix, and move away from grid-based composing. I hope you all enjoy the song! Thanks. Games & Sources Sonic Frontiers - Theme of Koko: proph note: this is the same thing for almost 2min and then has a B section at 1:54 that i almost missed

track has at least 4.5db of overhead, probably more if compression is used. opening chords are beautifully voiced. the G# there is certainly a choice. i really like the playing with time that you're doing around the 20s mark, but it becomes tough to hang your hat on a rhythm initially as it's too out of time. i like the 3v2 idea though and when you're more specific about the timing (like closer to the 1:00 mark) it's a lot easier to understand what's going on in the left hand. bar 16 feels really nice after the uncertainty of the opening section. that left hand voicing at bar 19 in beat two sounds weird even with the break you put in with the pedal - i think the G# and D next to each other with no E until halfway through the broken chord makes it hard to catch the chord structure initially. bar 20 though is worth the price of admission - that's straight out of an Uematsu FF piano arrangement, just beautiful. and repeating it at a lower dynamic really gives two perspectives on the same section, i really like that. at 27, nice job in the performance emphasizing the sustains over the noodles getting cooked underneath. we get a recap at 33, some really nice descending elements for a bit, and a heavily embellished broken chord to finish it. this is a beautiful arrangement! full of character, just like the original. there's a few points where academically i see what you did that don't quite sound right to me, but overall i love the concept and perspective. and the performance is very moving with a lot of patience. excellent job. YES

Sheet music for reference: 10 years ago my first OcRemix was posted - it was a piano solo arrangement of the love theme from Earthbound - I thought I'd mark the occasion by submitting an arrangement of the love theme from Earthbound's sequel! It's another personal favourite and something I'm glad I finally got around to covering. The source usage is pretty straight forward - I'll consider the original material to be made up of 2 sections, and A theme (starting from 0:00 in the source) and B theme (starting from 0:50). My remix has a short introduction, with the A theme coming in at about 0:30 (bar 8 in the score). It's a fairly straightforward, unembellished statement of the theme, but set over a bed of quiet descending triplets in the left hand (I'm sort of emulating the start of Mahler's famous adagietto here). There are some minor reharmonizations and twists on the melody here, which transitions to the B theme at bar 16. The texture is a bit thicker here with chords in the right hand and a busier 16th note rhythm in the left, with some ornamental high notes filling the spaces between the melody. It builds back up to the a repeat of the A theme in bar 20. After this climax, it breaks down for a couple measures with some soft 4/6 polyrhythms that continue to weave in and around the repeat of the B theme. After revisiting the original setting of the A theme briefly from bar 33, the piece ends with a quiet arpeggio. Also a small note, in terms of the mix you might notice some low end fuzz and some warbling - there is a vinyl filter on the track that can be removed if it's an issue. Games & Sources Mother 3 - Love Theme

opens with a really big distorted bassline. there's a huge fat kick that comes in right away as well, and then we get down with the phatness at 0:20 when the backing elements come in. it gets pretty dense and messy quickly - i love the opening riff and the bassline once the track gets moving individually, but they're in the same register so it gets hard to hear everything clearly. it stays dense and progresses through the chord structure for a bit until we get to 1:21 and there's a bit of a break from the bassline. at 1:42 there's some stabs and the timing on several of them is off - it's notable right away with how regimented everything else has been. this is clearly in a pattern because the same timing issues come back several times. the mix gets very over-dense again around the 2:10 mark and it's hard to really hear anything by the end of it. 2:32 is the first real break we've had, and this is really needed as the track is so oppressively mixed (honestly fitting for a doom track!). 3:02 brings in another completely sick bass tone (seriously, you've got like four in this track that are so great), and then we get a recap of the opening section (not copypasta but fairly close). the track trucks along for over a minute doing mostly the same thing, and then suddenly drops off with no beat and meanders a bit before ending suddenly without any prep. i'm honestly pretty torn about this. on one hand, it's very over-dense and cluttered in several sections, and the timing thing at 1:42 is offputting immediately when you hear it. on the other hand, it's got some absolutely dynamite synth choices and i actually like how oppressively heavy the mixing is, as it fits the game without sounding bad - it's just super heavy, the kick especially. i'd like to hear from someone else before i call this one as i'm really on the fence about it. ? edit 3/20: i want more things to happen in this track, like kris said. there's a very static, blocky quality to it, and it's hard to judge this without seeing all of the crazy automation and fun things each of these big synths could do. but we don't judge on potential or how close we are to attaining that potential, we just judge on what we have in front of us. this is an aggressive, forward mix with unique synths and a punchy approach. what's here is over the bar. it ain't perfect, but that's ok. YES

opens with what i think is ~30 of a joke, and then gets into the actual arrangement, so i'll start from there. opens with an expanded version of the dark world dungeon. there's some nice passing of the initial four-note pattern initially, and then a highly interpretive version of the dark world dungeon theme. this more outlines the chord structure and references the main riffs than it does directly arrange it - there's a lot of the original in the cello for example, but not a lot in the leading voices. there's a rhythmic and dynamic resolution around 1:57, and it starts referencing the ascending arpeggio riff from the NES dungeon. the melodic line here is roughly the same shape as the original's melody line that eventually comes in, but it's certainly more inspired by than it is the original's material. there's some octaves here that i didn't really care for in the scoring, actually - i would have much preferred more fleshed-out chords, at least partially because it wasn't obvious to me why those notes were being emphasized with octaves. the third section starts at 3:12 with some really fun disjointed and differently-timed ascending patterns. the cello here is overpoweringly loud for at least the first 20s or so. there's some resolution elements and it's done. there is what i think is some unintentional phasing going on throughout. later edit: this is apparently endemic to the samples used per the remixer, so it isn't something that we can correct easily. i also don't really get the first 35s and wouldn't mind if it was just from the true start of the piece that we posted. that said, what's here is a really interpretive and interesting take on several dungeon themes. there's a lot of complex arrangement going on here, and it's well-performed. what's here is still over my bar for execution as it's enjoyable and has a lot of depth in the performance and arrangement. YES

wild original. it really goes all over the place. opens with some water sfx, and then we get the chips to get it moving. there's a lot of long-tail verb on this to my ear and it sounds pretty spacey as a result. as far as i can tell, the opening two minutes or so are mostly the same notes as the original, with new instruments and a few extra backing elements put in there. it isn't until the two minute mark that we get something that'd be considered to be really arrangement and not just instrumental replacement. there's some exploration of the arpeggio section that the original ends on at 2:30, and then it fades out. unfortunately i don't think there's near enough arrangement to consider this. i actually like a lot of the choices you made (admittedly not all of them) for instrumental replacements, and i think what you've got here is a lot more listenable than the original. however the vast majority of this is dave rogers's arrangement and the synths are pretty close to his choices too, which really doesn't get this past the 'cover' stage. i'd love to hear this with more intentionality in the arrangement throughout - instead of switching between sections because the original did, make it more of a musical approach where you're choosing what to emphasize and what to stick with. separately, i'd say that there's a lot of fleshing out of the backing elements throughout that this needs. since you're not limited to a few channels, i'd suggest you expand a lot more! there's a lot of meat on that bone in my opinion. i think what's here would be something that the cpc fan community would be into. unfortunately it just doesn't meet the arrangement requirements for our site. some changes could definitely raise it to that bar, but may move it further away from your artistic concept. so it's up to you how you'd want to proceed. i certainly hope though that you'd consider revising it to meet the submission standards though! NO

classic original. opens with some sfx and a screaming guitar riff. lots of verb on everything. bass has a really weird tone - the fundamental isn't the loudest element, so i'm guessing it's been layered with something to make it fuller (the distorted tone somehow isn't the only bass tone there?), or else a super-notched EQ. that opening section sounds very strange as a result. the petrucci-esque guitar that comes in right after is fun, and it's also super loud but the bass sounds better with it. it sounds like none of the instruments are in the same room - lead has a ton of verb on it, rhythm and bass don't, and drums have some arena long-tail verb on them. lead guitar riffs at 1:00 sound great. tom groove going into 1:29 sounds like a fill pattern that got reused a lot - doesn't really feel like a tom groove, although i like the idea. 1:29's drums are the same as the opening - guessing the chips are as well. i like the addition of strings that happens partway through this section. it adds a lot to the feel. 2:27's section is the same as 1:00 (backing is the same, lead is up an octave initially). that said, i love the escalating elements of this section, and it's easily the best part of the piece. the opening in the bass is enough for me to say no on this, and the subsequent reuse of drums throughout isn't a great thing either (although i do like most of your fills, they really feel nice and keep it rolling forward a lot). i'd love to hear some more variety in the drums and fills in the first half, so that the second half (which currently has a lot of repeated parts) can stay the way it is now. you may also want to consider unifying your verb throughout so that the instruments sound like they're more in the same area. this is a fun track! i don't think these tweaks would really take a long time to execute on, so hopefully we see you back soon. NO

when this came up ~18 months ago, i voted on this with primary criticisms being the balancing, frequency overload in the low mids, and the arrangement feeling meandering due to lack of dynamics. opens with the ghost castle arp and a ton of really fun sfx work. some very industrial stuff is going on pretty far away, and the title screen's surprisingly chromatic melodic line comes in at 0:29. it's neat how well that works among a very spare background. the riff at 0:47 goes on for a long time and gets a little tiresome fairly quickly (that synth's delay effect was cool in small doses but is irritating with longer lines, especially since it's in one ear hard). percussion drops a bit going into the textural shift at 1:16 - there's some new drums here as well, which are pretty hard to hear (especially the kick). the aquaduct arpeggio with the delay effect is back in the right ear and it's way louder than everything else. it gets toned back later which is good. this continues to wander around with the aquaduct theme in the front for a while. i found this section to be lacking in direction still. there's a simplification at 2:07 alongside a time signature shift, and we're back to just the kitchen sink effects alongside the ghost castle theme for a bit. this section is neat with some of the counterpoint between the melody and counterpoint, but it feels underbaked both because of how thin it is here as compared to the drums chiming merrily along, as well as because it's the same synths as most of the rest of the song at roughly the same volume. it's hard to pull out that this is more or less important than other sections. i still find the transition at 2:37 confusing as well - it really sounds like the song suddenly ends, and there's no real prep or anything set up to come out of it either. the synth work immediately following that break featured a few shifts that i found made it easier to pick out what was the most important. the texture here also feels more fleshed out. i didn't like that the lead instruments for this section were mostly in the right ear instead of centered. there's some fun stutter effects on the leads later on also that i liked. i don't think my opinion on this has changed yet. i still don't like the weird cut at 2:37, i still think the middle third drags, and i still think the lack of dynamics is a negative throughout. i don't remember the panned lead instruments before, but i find that to be irritating as well (i found myself turning my head regularly to the right to 'hear' the lead better) - in fact i think the piece is over-panned throughout. from an arrangement standpoint, i think that you would be well-served by being more intentional bringing out the melodic lines you're trying to have us trace. you've got three sources, and tbh i think they work really well next to each other, but with that comes an imperative to be very intentional about how you emphasize and define what's where without losing the general song-form structure that you're using. the story here isn't as clear as it should be, and a big part of that is that the natural ebb and flow of a track isn't here due to there being little dynamics. i'm fine with a track that doesn't have a clear melody, but what is melody should be cohesive and readily apparent, and that's not happening here right now. i do think you've fixed the mix a lot - i remember before the bass being totally overwhelming above everything else, and then all your instruments were very tightly mashed against each other. i think the bass is probably a bit overcorrected, but overall i found the mix to be passable aside from the panning stuff. my concerns are mainly with the song form and arrangement elements. i have a lot to say here and it probably sounds like i hate it. i don't! i think there's some really neat concepts here, and a lot of overlapping back-and-forth stuff that reminds me a lot of old-school remixes that i loved. i just...i got done with the full listen a few times and just didn't remember a thing that happened in the middle of the piece outside of that panned synth being so annoying. that's not a good thing given the interconnected nature of this remix. the track doesn't go anywhere for an extended period of time. i actually think this is a fairly straightforward fix - just cutting some cruft out of the middle and emphasizing your melody more via non-delayed leads is probably enough. NO

30 something years ago I spent many hours having fun with trackers on my Amiga 500, and last year I re-discovered the remix scene (mostly thanks to Allister Brimble and Matt Gray) and, searching for my old favorite game tunes, I couldn't find any Nebulus remix so I thought I'd give the original Dave Rogers music some love. This is the first 8bit VGM version I make and share. Even though I ran the original game in an emulator to rescue a few in-game sound FX, I got the WAV outputs of the three channels in the main tune using the Amstrad CPC Musics Ultimate Compilation by Megachur/Paradox ( https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=11166 ). Some original segments were split and processed on Audacity, and others directly on Renoise, where I did the composition, effects (principally stereo work, reverbs, compressors, some phasers and distortion) and mix. Around 60% of processed original tune sounds were incorporated, along with several percussion, bass and synth instruments to make harmony and beat more complex, and a few library elements for transitions and atmosphere. The original tune barely exceeds two minutes. Most of the additional minute in the remix happened just jamming, trying to develop a bit the fun-yet-relentless melody Rogers made for climbing those spinning towers against time. Games & Sources Nebulus was a well known game for both C64 and Amstrad CPC but the likely original, full main tune was composed by Dave Rogers for the CPC. The C64 tune was not credited, and a rather dull conversion sorted out by the Commodore lead dev himself, so the fun original track hasn't received much love in the remix scene. Here's a profile of composer Dave Rogers - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/games/credit/36495-dave-rogers And an Amstrad longplay video that starts with the full original tune I worked with.

This is my take on the track with a metal/guitar-driven focus. I recreated the chiptune elements myself from scratch to accompany the more modern guitar/bass/drum sound to blend the two eras. All guitars are performed by myself and I used the Neural Petrucci amp sim to transpose the rhythm guitars down by 10 steps to create a more 7/8-string guitar vibe, although everything was tracked on my 6-string. I felt as though that prominent bassline was crying out for a super low-tuned guitar sound and I think it came together nicely. I tweaked the timing a little to give it a bit more of a punchy staccato vibe which also lent itself well to guitar. I threw in some ad-libs to the arrangement, referencing the main theme of the game on guitar at times, with another cheeky reference at the end of the track that foreshadows the melody of the syndicate headquarters in the sequel to the game. Games & Sources Original track: "The Last Soul" (Round 8) from Streets of Rage 1, by Yuzo Koshiro.

opens with some filtered stutter synths. we get a lot more instruments at 0:14 - it gets pretty dense really quickly. a quick freq analysis sees a lot of sub-40hz content that's really clogging up the bottom of the mix. it also sounds like the hats are filtered alongside the arp - which means there's not much high content at all. so it sounds pretty condensed. dropping a significant highpass on the stuff below 40hz would be a big help. beyond that, the track is so compressed. it's very dense and oppressive. turning everything down a lot, getting volumes roughly where you want them before your compression and limiting, would be a big positive. there's a bit of a break with sfx at the 1:00 mark, and then we're back to a repeat of the first 30s of the full band sound. this is followed by another sfx break with some electro guitar in there to mix it up a bit (but the backing elements just repeat twice in a row), and then we're back to another repetition of 0:30-1:00...and, well, you get the picture. there's a lot of wholesale repetition that just gets tiring. something to change it up each time - even changing synths would help! - is really needed to avoid it just being repeated over and over again. better to repeat something once too few times than once too many. the same 30s of full band repeats like five or six times with various sfx around it until around 3:45 when the arp finally stops. the next several 16-bar sections involve the full band section repeating with various instruments added in or out, but it's the same thing overall. it repeats a few more time and then it's done with a kind of weird pitch as a final note. there's some audible static as well that just drops after a few seconds. overall i like the concept - 90s house is a specific vibe and i think that SoR would fit that a lot. what's here though is maybe one minute of material stretched over five. i know that house can be repetitious, but there's loads of examples of keeping the overall feel moving consistently by using instruments that have natural change over time. this just sounds like the same 30s repeated at least ten times, with a few breaks for sfx that also have similar backing elements. i'd suggest trimming the length way back and finding ways to never say the same thing twice the same way. add a new instrument, change a synth, use a different drum fill, etc. - it's going to add a ton to the overall package. NO

as always, thank you for a clear source breakdown. opening starts with the title theme with a variety of transitional sweeps layered in. we start to get a beat at 0:36 and it picks up from there. this entire opening section feels pretty dull with the instrument choices - there's not much sparkle in any of them for them all being EP-like, and the kick is kind of blah - but we get some pop at 0:54 when the melody comes in. i love the time signature goofiness - the 7/8 section is absolutely the right choice there. 1:27 tones it back down again. there's a surprising amount of sustains that kind of just sit there (really expected to hear some blurbs to keep it moving through that), and the overall texture is still pretty dull outside of the sweeps. i felt like that past the 2 minute mark until about 2:10 when we started getting more percussive elements coming in and more brighter synths, and then again was in a happy place at 2:25 with the melodic material back in. this trucks through the melody of both tracks, and then it's done. the ending is a little abrupt but fits the style. this track does a fantastic job of saying "wait just a bit longer for the part you want", and then it's there and it's great, and then the track's done and i'm putting it on again. this is a great compositional technique - always repeat one less time rather than one extra time! - and when the track pops, it really pops. i think you do a great job taking a track that's kind of already in your style and making it unique and yours without copying what made it good originally. nice work. YES

if this is a brand-new project, i don't know if it counts as a resubmission. opens with some organ outlining the chords and the opening melodic line. there's a stutter synth here that doesn't really fit the organ and voices, but then an edm beat comes in so it makes more sense. beat feels pretty cluttered - the snare has a lot of low content, kick feels unfocused, there's several low synths in this section, and the fills feel like they're layered on top instead of being different things the drums are doing. 0:27 has the melodic content come in for the first time in full. i really don't care for this lead as it's very occluded and hard to hear what it's doing. i do like the call and response concept that's going on there though! there's a break right after this for a bit, and then we get a new lead at 0:55. and then another new synth bass at 1:09, and another new lead at 1:23! it's a lot of change in a short period of time. it's ok to lean on one tone to help to tie sections together - this feels a little too bouncy between ideas (although i like the ascending arp a lot, and the 404 bassline that's right after it). there also continues to be a lot of drum fills that are complex and dense, and a little less there might be ok - a few well-timed tom hits are better than the same complex fill over and over. there's a break at 1:47 - and then a bigger break at 2:02, with some sound design on the transition. this goes into an outro that repeats the opening idea, and it's done. after hearing it, i'm remembering this one from when i voted on it in 2022 (and several times before). i think you've got a lot better overall sound quality than you did last submission! i'd like to see more cohesiveness from section to section, a few of the more complex leads reined in, and a lot more work on the drums - less of the same big complex fills and more intentionality about what it's doing. NO

all five previous submissions most recent rejection It has been some time since I have taken a crack at this track. This one is a brand new project, and I tried to use some of what I learned on my Twisted Systerz submission. It's the first walkabout theme from Dragon Warrior 2. I give thanks for the time and consideration ahead of time:) Games & Sources

i wasn't sure about the instrumentation initially (maybe i'm still not?), but this has some funky ideas to it. opens with some noodling around the opening riff, and gets to the melodic material at 0:19. it's not 100% the original melody, but has some stuff modified in it while outlining the skeleton of the original. i am not a huge fan of the changes, actually, but the implementation (beat, bass, lead) are actually pretty fun and unique. i don't know what 0:49's referencing, because it doesn't sound like the B theme and doesn't use the same chord progression. 1:16 is a solo with a...floppy drive? it's got some fun stuff to say, so maybe physical media wasn't a mistake. 1:45's a little more goofy and explores some alternative stuff. we get the melody back at 2:22 after that exploratory section for one more time through, and then it's done in kind of an unexpected way without as much prep as i'd have hoped. i'm going to check with the remixer, because what's here doesn't seem to have enough source ultimately. i don't recognize what's going on at 0:49, and from 1:10-2:22 doesn't seem to have any source in it at all since it's using the altered chord progression and i don't hear melodic material. so i'll check, but right now i only hear about 65s of source (0:00-0:15, 0:20-0:42, 1:07-1:10, 2:22-2:47) if i'm being generous. ? edit 12/23: update from the op: Thanks for the detailed feedback! At :49 the stutter style lead melody is the same notes of the B section of Marble Zone, though I admit it’s not as recognizable as the lead section in my remix. At 1:47 however, while it again is using the lead notes from the B-section, it is in fact less recognizable. If it’s overall not close enough for OC Remix standards I totally understand. Either way thanks for giving it a listen! the notes aren't quite the same - the original is Am/G/F, and there's no G# (would be an A# in the key of the remix) in the original, but i catch the outlining of the B theme now without the extra repeated notes that the original has. adding in those two sections is enough to get it well over the 50% line. and i like the track overall - while i wish there'd been some different choices around the ending and the adaptation of the melody, i think what's here is unique and fun, and it's a really neat vibe. YES