prophetik music

track is mono. stereo is a requirement, so this can't pass as-is. i'll review it through anyways with that in mind. starts out with some bass fading in and eventually some hats. this is a pretty long intro - it's not until 0:45 that we even get a kick, and the snare doesn't come until 1:06. so that's a full minute at the beginning with admittedly some not-super-interesting synths to be listening to. there's some melodic content for the first time at 1:50 - that's simply too long of an intro without the synth work being sublime. at 2:20 or so you add an open hat on top of the existing hat pattern. you'll want to dovetail those together to more simulate a drumset being used - the closed hat sounds wouldn't play when the open hat is struck. this noodles for several more minutes before slowly winding down, but there's nothing else new being added. so, from an overall perspective, i think that there's a neat idea here but it needs a lot of execution help. the synths overall lack panache and punch and as a result are really generic and low-energy. the heavily repetitive background part (in the bass, the 404, and the little bell tones that accompany the bass) are just too repetitive - especially for an original that regularly changes it up! lower norfair has a ton of changes as the track goes on, and none of that is reflected in this remix. separately, it's very clear you're turning on and off channels rather than really crafting a shape for each section - the ending as instruments drop out really reinforces that. there needs to be a lot more intentionality to the overall shape of the piece beyond just clicking in and out boxes. lastly, from a mixing and mastering perspective, the piece lacks verve. the percussion is pretty bog-standard but there's no sidechaining or EQing to make it really pop, and the track overall feels quiet. i think this needs a lot more workshopping before it's ready to rock. there's a neat concept here, but there needs to be a lot of attention paid to the arrangement, to the synth instruments and what they're doing, and then to the mixing and mastering before this is ready for prime time. NO

the chords don't map directly from what i can hear. that makes these blobs of chords inspired by, and not directly taken from, the original track. they may be highly different voicings and that's where i'm losing it. i really don't dig the idea of us trying to parse this ourselves, this should be an artist-provided breakdown to ensure we're not missing stuff in either direction. edit 2/8: i am teh dumb

oh man, look at that audio sausage! right off the bat - you've got a ton of sub-40hz content that needs to be EQ'd out. also the drums are so loud i can't even hear the original through much of it. the track is fun distorted drums (that probably don't need to be so loud, you can be distorted and big without overvolting everything like this) with the original under it essentially unchanged to my ear for the first 1:30. after that you start to do some new stuff, which is great! it's too little too late, however. there just isn't enough transformative arrangement throughout the track. even if the mastering and mixing was good - which they really are pretty rough - this wouldn't be near enough to pass. i recommend muting your drums and make something that's fun to listen to with just the synths that isn't [the original plus a stutter synth]. once you've got that, then the drums are the thing that makes the track great! then you can actually work on mixing the parts together so that they compliment each other. NO

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

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

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

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

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

^ 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

very split votes so far. delay effect on the cello up front is distracting, but the bells are nice and evocative. 0:45's transition is surprising - the effect that's there is very bright and in the front for a while. 1:06 is kind of the first time everything really hits, and it's a bit of a word salad. the bass and drums are loud and in the cente,r the left ear is all bells doing arpy things...and the melodic material is in the right ear only in a quiet verb-heavy cello. it doesn't take much turning the volume down to lose the melody entirely. 1:49 is a huge break and, very loud arp aside, i love the idea and timing of it. 2:11 is back into the groove, although with some nice shifts to what's going on so it isn't copypasta. there's another break with some guitar - i love the idea, but it sounds so different than everything else, and then the choir comes in and dominates everything anyways so you can't hear anything else. 3:16 is another shift to an organ-dominated vibe. the organ parts are great. the solo line over the top repeatedly misses what chord's underneath it and plays something that's discordant as a result. i noticed this at 3:23, 3:31, 3:35, and 3:39 as an example. i highly recommend not noodling on a pentatonic scale over a chord progression with borrowed chords. the fun in those chord progressions is the half-steps on the 3rds and 7ths from chord to chord, and pentatonic scales by definition don't have the ability to take advantage of those. i did really enjoy the shift from traditional organ to a more synth background that happened over time - that was really clever and well-handled. 3:56 is another run through the melodic material and then it's in an outro. by this point the vocal transition lick is probably overused. i also didn't quite understand the static sfx at the end. re: the batphone: 0:32 is a borrowed chord in this context, and it's straight out of the original. it sounds weird because bells have a ton of overtones, and your ear expects certain tones when you hear these pitches. it's part of why churchbells often sound out of tune - they're not, but the overtones are so strong that some pitches sound weird next to one another. 0:51 is because it's a fretless bass, and it's a hammer-on. it sounds bad, i agree, it just sounds like a wrong note. it'd work better actually if the slide was longer and farther since it'd be more obvious what was going on. 2:11 i don't have any problem with melodically (the arp's just following the chord structure, but it's really loud). this track smacks of careful, loving, intentional sound design. there's a ton of really interesting ideas and transitions, as expected from your music. it also has a lot of "oh, i love this part! *cranks it up*" volumization and mastering throughout, and that is not good. i think that actually the best thing you could do is have someone else master this so that the levels can be brought back into a more balanced range - or at least, give it a month to percolate before coming back to it (i get that's not really doable for this holiday as a result). the balance is so all over the place. i believe most of the concern about it not feeling cohesive is a result of this - there's less focus on the melodic line and more on the glam around it, and as a result there's nothing tying us to the original concept as much as you'd usually expect. a more consistent master should address concerns around continuity (for example, the guitar section) and should also elevate the melodic line more so as to string it all together. NO =(

this has 13db of headroom. starts out heavy in the kick and ep. the lead synth sure sounds exactly like the original, and it's doing much the same thing initially, just with less backing elements. there's eventually some synth brass that joins and emphasizes just how discordant the original was, surprisingly enough. there's still no real drums through this section, just a kick with some click on the attack. it goes through the original twice and then has a very fast fadeout with no prepared ending. this is not transformative arrangement, unfortunately. this is the same thing as the original with less of what made it fun in the instrumentation. NO

lot of headroom on the track. initial piano performance is really nice. vibe is really dry, bass is doing some nice stuff but due to the style sounds like something your neighbor's listening to than anything else. the middle section is definitely more solo over the chord changes than anything. there isn't a ton of kakariko in the solo either, although the solo itself sounds fantastic. there's no ending. it's not even a tape cut, it just stops. i didn't hear any tracks on modal soul that had zero ending, although i heard some fadeouts. this is not particularly adjacent to nujabes. listening to modal soul, there's a lot more going on there overall. the drums tend to either be very realistic with their mastering or else are loops doubled on top of themselves with other spacing elements in there and a lot more verb (don't hear much that's very dry). the bass pretty much is just fundamental like it is here, but the other backing elements are in general pretty complex and have a lot going on. there's also a much different mastering perspective applied - there's a lot of heavy limiters and intentionally blown-out tone to the keyboards and other chordal instruments, rather than the very light mastering touch applied here. i don't think this is really there yet. NO

the original is so minimalistic - like, the actual meaning of the word, not just 'there's not much going on' - so, i love the idea of a very stripped-down instrumentation to represent it. the rhodes elements appear to be a set of plectral percussion, which would work if they weren't so pitched. there are numerous places that the percussion feels like it's directly competing with a chordal element (0:32 is a good example, as is 1:08 and 2:18). separately, there are numerous times where the organ instrument has direct dissonances in the chorded rhodes (0:18, 1:21, ) that don't sound positive or like they're building stress - they just sound wrong. the track follows the same overall structure and essentially never changes - organ chords navigating through the original chord structure, left hand of the left rhodes on 1, 2, and the an of 3, and then chorded elements on the and of 3 alongside continuous burbling rhodes percussion. this is not an compositional technique that lends itself to personal interpretation or transformative arrangement. there are certainly examples of extreme minimalism used in remixes - we've got a track that apes In C, for example, and my own Animal Counterpoint is built from a heavily minimal original track and apes New York Counterpoint heavily. so it's absolutely doable. this however doesn't demonstrate the same level of transformative arrangement that those do, and what it does do isn't super pleasant to listen to due to the nature of the plectral percussion and the dissonances in the approach. i love the experimental nature of this. i don't think it works, unfortunately. NO

had no idea this game had music. i don't know if i had speakers on the computer that i played this on. sfx to start. the reference to ASZ is overt, but i'll note that ASZ has entered the zeitgeist for some time now so i don't feel too bad about the inclusion here. track kind of starts at 1:21, and we start to get a beat at 1:41 which is solid. love the the chordal approach here, and the lead is a perfect patch. agree with larry that the melody could have been clearer in that section. lead guitar at 2:55 is pretty treble-heavy, i found it to be kind of grating, especially in the chorded parts of this section. the subsequent section does indeed quote Sun of Nothing for quite a while. it's not quite a minute. as i am part of the reason this policy exists, i can just say i feel you that said - this is a track that is nearly eight minutes long (if you include the sfx elements, which i do, since it's integral to the concept), which makes the quote ~12% of the track. i'm actually ok with the length of the reference. the track continues trucking through some really great shreds until we get back to some more sfx to finish it out over some piano. this is an awesome concept. if indeed it does get rejected, i'd love to hear a version that trims enough of the reference elements from Sun of Nothing to be allowable here. really neat work. YES, BUT ONLY IF THE STANDARDS ARE NOT A HARD AND FAST RULE

my previous vote mentioned a death of a thousand cuts - namely a ton of little things that came together and made the sum less than the parts. still a heavily compressed beat right off the bat. sounds like less of the panning on that stutter synth, so that's a win. beat hits at 1:02 and it feels fuller than it did before, which is a positive. 1:33 still doesn't have much going on there besides the beat, lead, bass, and arp. around the 2 minute mark i noticed the arp's been hammering away the entire track and it's starting to feel a little much. 2:00's when the glidier synth comes in on the lead, and it's a nice change. it definitely feels too cluttered there - the arp's so loud that it feels louder than the lead, and it's a bit confusing what to listen to. the track then navigates a subtractive fade and it's done. it still feels really loud, and it's messy in several sections. the limiter's really doing a lot and it shouldn't be. but the song's got a catchy feel, it drives well, and conceptually i like what you're doing with the instruments. i'm actually kind of mixed about this one right now. ??? edit: based on the other judge votes, i am making perfect the enemy of good. i do think this is enough. YES

imo one of the strongest melodies on a melodically-driven soundtrack. opening section is very close to note for note to the original outside the natural adaptation to guitars. i'll note i didn't find the hammer-ons in the accompaniment guitar to sound like anything other than mistakes most of the time. at 1:32, we've gotten through the verse and chorus once, and it starts the verse again with essentially nothing changed outside of one or two notes being slightly different in approach. by the time the chorus comes around, we're beyond 50% of the track and it's still essentially a realization of what the original has going for it. we do finally get some updates at 2:44 with a new tag transition coming out of the chorus, which i love - the diminished stack going into the motivic movement was clever. the original writing that follows is great to listen to and enjoyable but has no correlation to the original that i heard. 4:16 is a bit of the original and resolves...then starts another last play-through of the end of the chorus for a second ending. this is well-performed and technically proficient. the guitar sounds pretty good although more warmth in the tone would have been nice. what sinks it is arrangement - you've got ~60% cover and 40% original (roughly in that order) with not a ton of correlative material between. we need more interpretive arrangement, and if you're going to feature original material, that original material should be better tied into the game content. NO

ff6's soundtrack is so distinct. the entire thing is such a musical, right down to the over-the-top clown as the bad guy, the broad and visually unique cast of characters, and the variety of solo aria-style tracks in the ost. opening section is a very straightforward adaptation of rachel. the transition into tifa's theme was very smooth, and while i don't particularly care for this piano's upper range tone, the right hand's got some fun harmonic content that's going on under the melody (like at 1:10) that's clearly inspired by tifa's melody. there's a few harmonic ideas that are a little weird (1:17-1:18 jumped out at me). i missed the transition from there into rachel's theme at 1:28 - that was a great dovetail. there's some noodling between the two themes back and forth for a while. 2:40's time shift was a little unexpected and unsupported. the two lines interweave a bit and it ends with a bit of tifa's theme as an unresolved cadence. from a technical side - there is very little room sound here and it shows. when the pedal comes up, the note is done and there's nothing that i'm hearing for a tail or for room tone. some more meaningful application of reverb would help a lot, especially with my second issue - the piano tone is very pale from a tonal color perspective. the far right hand really is not a particularly nice tone to listen to, and you use it a lot especially in block octaves. i found it to be less comfortable to listen to as a result. i do think that verb will help smooth out that tone a bit so it's not so sharp and striking. this piano tone would work for, say, the zanarkand arrangement we just got. i can't help but think a warmer piano tone would do wonders for such an emotive set of melodic lines. maybe even some EQing would help...i've never really EQ'd solo piano myself. overall, i think the arrangement is really solid. there's a few bits and bobs that maybe could have been handled in other ways, but overall the interweaving of the two themes is stellar and really enjoyable. however, this is a solo piano piece, and there's just less there from a technical side to support that. i really want a better application of reverb to pass this. separately and not as critically, i want a warmer piano tone if possible, and if not, then some adjustments made to the arrangement to have less block right hand octaves striking the 7th octave so sharply - maybe using more broken chords or acciaccatura to help provide more context to those notes. honestly i can see this passing - the arrangement is striking. i really am falling on the side of "this is technically not quite there" and i can't imagine it'd take that much to give it more warmth through room tone, and in turn really increase significantly the overall enjoyability of the arrangement. JUST BARELY NO

short intro with some sfx before the main gig starts at 0:14. larry's comment that it's a bit slow i think is going in the right direction - initially this certainly doesn't have as much vibrancy as the original, and feels a bit low-energy as a result. the early break may be part of that, but also there's a heavy emphasis on the downbeat through like 1:30 and it just feels very heavy on its feet - not particularly sonicy! there's a nice variety of synths being used (and sfx...never would have mashed up SC2 and S&K!), and the fm bass is indeed fun. the track essentially ends at 2:21, and there's some unrelated beat for a bit until it's actually over. this isn't anything super groundbreaking, but it's a quick and easy take on a good original track. i liked the gliding synths a lot. YES

upbeat start with some fun sound design thrown in there. 0:19's build into 0:33 is great, and the hit at 0:33 is ridiculously over the top as expected. there's a ton of variation after this in various sections which i appreciate. 1:15 is repeating an earlier section, but quickly moves to some new stuff, including switching to three for a bit and then making me jump a bit with the laugh sfx. by 1:59 it's mostly done and it's just NAVIgating an outro. short and fun, love it. this is an easy one. YES

intro is straightforward with little changes outside of the genre adaptation. the ascending burbles were nice and appropriately rare. 1:42 adds some doubling occasionally for harmony, but is still mostly the same as the first time through with no changes to key. A:Bing it does show some extremely minor changes (there's some different attack velocities on the lead EP in a few places), but it's basically twice through with almost exactly the same thing, and then it ends suddenly mid-loop. this is a pattern with LXE's music that i've seen - most of them have loop-point endings rather than properly prepared endings like you'd expect for a standalone song. this is not enough arrangement as-is. the genre feel is on point, but this is even more simple than the original track in terms of instrumentation so it would need to have truly stellar personalization. that is not the case here - if you slow the original down, it's doing roughly what's going on here with some changes to how the backing chords speak. i think the track itself sounds fine (although, again, all of LXE's tracks need compression), but from an arrangement perspective there's not enough personalization and it is the same loop twice with no ending. we need more here at OCR. NO

@MindWanderer @Gario should confirm their votes before we move this.

significant sfx to start (it's very loud!). 0:24 is where melodic material comes in, with an industrial-adjacent beat underneath it. there's a lot of noise in the backing beat, and it's hard to confirm if all of it is intentional as the track is mixed mega loud. there's some added elements in the opening minute or two from a countermelodic standpoint, but not a ton there. once we get to 2:00, however, there's a significant uptick in energy as the rhythm guitar gets going. that section is great with the driving beat. this however is over too quickly, and around 2:25 we get what sounds like the same elements as the opening section - strings, some pads, same industrial beat now for a while, and it doesn't really shift until after 3:00 when it does the same build that it did before 2:00 and does the same more intense section. so that's a lot of mirrored material with virtually no changes in there. coming out of that harder section, we get a nice shift to double-time at 3:36 - this is a good shift after hearing the same groove with mostly the same synths for >3.5 minutes. it's mostly guitar-driven and there's not a ton relating it back to the original through this. i liked the bass synth at 4:26. the drums simplify around this time and they sound like they did during the earlier harder sections, which is a bummer. the energy drops off significantly at 5:12 and the next 30s are mostly just vibing along the same drumbeat with the same vocal elements as before above it. we finally get a break from the beat at 5:42, but again this is repeating the same strings in the same octaves doing the same things as earlier, and the pads and vocal elements are even the same as before. there's a rising element and it's done. this is roughly three and a half minutes of music scraped over nearly 6.5 minutes of bread. i think that there is way too much wholesale repetition in this track for it to be a standalone thing vs. a background track at a presentation or con. separately, it's mastered so loud that it is very tiring to listen to. most of the instruments sound unintentionally distorted (separate from the drums, which i really like the grit on). i think you have some really great ideas here - the initial elements with the strings and vocals, the heavier section, and the double-time section all by themselves are objectively fun to listen to - they're just repeated ad nauseum until they lose impact. it's not good technique to paste in the same blocks of audio as you've already done several times, it's just going to bore the listener regardless of how exciting and masterful the block is. this needs serious trimming and to be scoped way back in the loudness department before i'd be willing to consider a yes vote. NO