prophetik music

initial hit sounds great. really channels the post-grunge alt sound that was pretty popular in the early aughts. there's a piano tone in the first fifteen seconds or so that's high-pitched and irritating, but i don't hear it after that so that's no big deal. i thought the strummed sustains in the lead guitar in the B section were wheedly too, some other ideas for how to sustain those (or put in some other licks there) might be a good idea. i liked the octaves that you do the second time around a lot better. this unfortunately doesn't really feature any transformational arrangement. it's the original's chords and melody in guitar and bass and drums, with some extra countermelodic content in the last third of the piece. we don't do covers here, but this is certainly a capable one! for this to pass, there'd need to be more attention to arrangement to mix it up more. NO

some filtro to start it, but the vibe at 0:15 is immaculate. i really liked the rhodes at 1:05, and the handoff there to let the EP take the lead was nicely handled. the keys solo through 1:45 was nice but the drums (specifically the crash) was a bit bright to hear it. the recap at 2:07 was nicely done - similar to before, but some nice personalizations to mix it up. the lush pad work at 3:00 or so is really nice, and a fun change from the earlier instrumentation. 3:33 has the menu theme start up, and it's again well-realized into the style. the vocoder stuff was fun if unintelligible. the arpeggiated section at 4:52 was just so good, what a great idea there. the melodic material comes back around 5:02 and it's just got such verve, i love the way that you've arranged this section. there's an outro at 5:38 and that's a wrap. this is a great track and shows a ton of creativity in adapting the tracks to the style. nice work. YES

really patient intro. beat starts at 0:55 and really does have that squelchy late 60s sound (the sousaphone is such an eclectic choice, lol). this is actually really impressive in how you replicated some of the more traditional soundscapes with modern tools and mics. 2:27 is a shift from duple to triple, and does a nice job replicating the adjacent section in the original. there's a few dissonances i'd say are unintentional at 2:56 or so. the heavy, plodding beat at 3:05 is very fitting for the tyrano. 3:29 we get the big blow. this sounds great through here, and the guitar work feels very authentic to the style. the ending is kind of funny in how different it is. this is a fun take on a track that doesn't get enough love. nice work. YES

significant source usage. this'll be interesting. after some sfx intro work, there's a bit of the fithos theme heavily effected and pitch-tweaked. the sweeping distortion effects here are really neat as is the bitcrushing (?) on the tail of some phrases. the following section, of The Extreme, has some neat elements of macro vs. micro beats going on, although i couldn't understand a word of the vox part (this might be me, i'm terrible at understanding words in song). the section from 2:15 really has an impending-doom feel to it, it's a really neat vibe. 3:11 is a significant shift - it's much faster, and the mixing here is nowhere near as clear as the earlier sections were. notably, the booming kick has a lot of sub-40hz content that takes up the aural space and tires out my ear. the build however is great into 3:45, and the effecting on the lead is really fun. this section is a real toe-tapper and drives towards a half-time beat at about 4:17. this section was a bit heavy in the right ear. there's a true break at 5:03, with some dueling harpsichords, and we get right back on the 'train' at 5:12 for a little over a minute. the building tension into the clocktower sfx at about 6:20 was truly amazing - so many different concepts being layered in. and then at 6:40 we get another total tonal shift. this felt very sudden and completely detatched from the previous six minutes. the heavily effected vox parts were well-handled, and it's a neat idea, i just felt it was very separate from the rest of the track. the remix kind of starts back up around 7:44, and it feels again like the earlier sections with the heavy kick and driving energy. 8:27 or so feels like an ending is starting - there continues to be a lot of exploratory synth usage (and a wrench?) but it definitely feels like we're nearing the peak. there's chiptune stuff, there's ps1-sounding synths, and then we get what feels like some fadeout elements for an ending that hearkens back to the beginning. i didn't care for the last minute plus as i felt it built up but got too scattered for its own good, and then there was no real capstone to finish it off. it kind of keeps wandering through styles until there's the sfx outro and choir shout-out. i think - even if it wans't some big epic slamming blow - a more cohesive ending before the last maybe 25 seconds or so that wrapped the themes in one that was familiar to us by the time we got there would have felt more terminal. it felt like we were going there around 9:20, but it just tailed off instead of going for it. i feel like the ending was a real letdown, the rap section was pretty disjointed from the rest of the track, and there's certainly nitpicks in the mastering throughout as is expected for a track of this length. but the track as a whole is an achievement, and the overall experience is really something special. this is well above the bar. YES

this probably needs a new title. the variety of synths in the opening alone is just great. tons of creative noisy stuff going on all at the same time. 0:49's where it really gets going, and there's a ton of craziness going on in. i really appreciate the commitment to just getting dirty throughout. 1:40's shift is great - getting an extreme-g vibe from that hat sound, and the continued energy through this section is great. 2:15 does repeat the synths from earlier, but with different drums, so i don't mind the recap. if i am going to complain about any of this, it's that it really should have an actual ending instead of a hard cut like it has. the volume of repeated material is also worth a note - while i don't mind mostly repeated stuff if there's an attempt to mix it up, there are a few borderline elements in the last third of this piece, and the remixer's other track had a lot more by volume as well. that said, this is a fun take with a ton of attention paid to unique synth work and a good amount of energy. nice work. YES

this is a fun approach. short remixes need to use their time extremely effectively, as the other judges have noted - repetition or extended deviations from the material need to be carefully weighed. the track feels like it needs another minute overall, if only to balance the (big and pretty fun) bridge against the repetitions of the melodic material. i hear (roughly): A B A C A, with C being like half the piece. there's a ton of room to bring back the B material in the end, at least, especially if you're willing to branch out more and change the vibe up more around that section. A and B already have a notably different feel to them, so leaning into that would be a great compositional method. from a mastering perspective, i think the track sounds great, and there's good clarity between all the stuff going on simultaneously. your synth choices are fun and solid, so it's more a matter of making sure there's enough actual material that's not repeated. i'd love to hear this one back again with more body to it and a real ending. NO

neat idea. thank you for a detailed writeup. the initial drumbeat and groove really does have a Snarky Puppy feel to it, nice work there. i'm honestly surprised that the lead at 0:25 is FH and not trumpet. i didn't have an issue with the synth - the tone is straight off of We Like It Here, even the dryness next to the other instruments (although it could have used a touch more room verb on it). same with the one at 2:06. the chord progression at 1:40 is a neat idea. i very much liked the transition to this with the back-and-forth solos. the switch to 7/8 at 2:49 caught me off guard but again, i really liked the idea. the prog influences on all of this is super clear. 3:13 is a recap of the FH section from the beginning with some new synths added in. 3:32's subsequent 4/4 runthrough of the melodic material is a great way to prep for the shuffling outro and subsequent piano noodles to finish it. arrangement is great. you really nailed the Snarky Puppy style of melodic ensemble writing with a clear direction and a lot of variety in texture. the track sounds excellent throughout as well - the drier tone is in general an SP staple, and it's hard to do imo since it's so easy to just make it a desert, so excellent job getting that balance handled well. what a great track. bravo. YES

the intro guitar tone is just perfect. what a great sound, simple but effective. the beat comes in at 0:15 and is pretty snappy, and i noticed here that the track isn't particularly balanced from section to section (would love to hear some more compression). the melodic material is well-played by the guitar, there's a wrong note in the chord at 0:46 in the middle of the background, putting a minor third next to a major from the sound of it. the break at 1:21 or so with the ep is again an excellent instrumentation selection, fitting the style very well. 1:55 is a bit of stylistic change, and there's a few funky notes from the altered chords used there. after this it kind of noodles through some melodic material and then it's done. this is pretty simple overall, but the simplicity is a feature, not a bug. it's a nice approach to an underrepresented game. YES

yeah, i agree that the piano sample is not great, and it's not used great (lots of slammed velocities, little room sound). the thing that got me throughout the arrangement is how indeed the track does feel very cohesive despite the constant changes between themes. the ensemble feels great throughout, and i never feel like there's a transition where it was awkwardly shoved in there. it feels like a prog track with the constantly shifting textures and how you constantly are passing off the lead around a small cast of characters, a critical element in making it feel all like the same track. any complaints are nits, like the synth solo at 5:38 having too much verb/delay and too long of a tail, or the common intonation issues in the horns (which were particularly bad in the last minute or so of them playing). really impressive arrangement here. love it from start to finish. YES

i'm going to guess this was from 2023, not 2013 pulsing intro is a neat idea, underneath the distortion effects and some light pads. the E&S really fits over the rich pad work. the swell at 0:57 is nice, and the chord work is interesting to listen to. the percussion that comes in at 1:10 is indeed weak-sounding, with a lot of other elements much further forward in the mix. the guitar part is nice but very treble-heavy - i'm sure that's intentional, but it sounds a bit shrill and the rhythm guitar sounds pretty staticky as a result. 1:38 brings a break, and we're back to some of the vibe from the intro until a shift at about 1:58. i liked the arp that comes in at 2:38 and thought that the understated lead in this section initially was a nice idea. 2:59's short build into the final blow-through of the melody was effective, and the soaring synth lines over this ending section sound great. the subsequent outro is handled nicely and it feels good on the ending. this is an easy vote. the track sounds great, it's got tons of source, and it's a neat idea with the two tracks being combined together. nice work. YES

intro swell contains the piano loop with loads of rich string pads and bells, and some really luscious writing in the winds. it really feels like the music you'd hear in a BBC documentary talking about the sun rising on a spring morning, dew dripping off the trees and birds chirping and david attenborough wheezing his way through a soliloquy about a rare parrot or something. the suspension at 1:00 and subsequent resolution and root chord with the flutter in the flute at 1:04 is truly special. 1:53's the one part where i can really see significant shifts in the piano's writing, and it's probably my favorite part of the entire piece. it's very subtle and measured, and better for it. 2:25's choir is really nice. a simple way to reinforce the piano melody. the track, patient as it is, takes about a half-minute to truly end after it kind of finishes what it was going for, and we hear poor david walking away as the track fades out. what a patient and expansive arrangement, realized flawlessly and mastered very cleanly. superior work. YES

yeah, in general, lofi's detuning techniques really get to me. i can't listen for very long. the initial melodic hit at 0:26 is great. stylistically this sounds exactly like what i'd expect, and the little rainfall arps that drop down a few seconds later are just chef's kiss. adding in stripped-down lost woods melodic material later is also an excellent idea. 1:56's lead synth sounds incredible. what a perfect selection for the part. there's some new chords for the first time at 2:47 as part of an outro, and it's done. this sounds really solid. it's a unique, highly detailed take on two overused themes. excellent work. YES

this is a clever idea for a remix. foley work initially is solid. the initial melodic material is recognizable - putting it by itself with essentially no harmonic backing is a bold choice, especially considering how noodly it is, but it works with the weird vocal rumblings underneath it. 1:21 brings in some percussive elements and eventually an actual beat, and this is another section where the widely disparate elements work together a lot better than you'd think they would. there's some pitchiness in the live instruments around 1:56 or so. there's a big shift at 2:06, bringing in the brass and horns above what sounds like some altered time signatures through the body of premonition. 2:33's another one that feels like it should be way weirder than it actually was - keeping similar elements in the horns and sax there helped to tie those two sections together. 2:55's transition again is significant, but continues to use the horns and sax to tie together a witch's brew of different elements. 3:24's another break from melodic writing, spending time dancing through a variety of strong-attack instrumentation (bells, piano, a pretty funky organ) until it very suddenly shifts significantly at 4:09 to what feels very much like the outro on a long jazz track until it gets something more rhythmic at 4:31. there's some more fun sound design until the record skips and we get an outro for a bit at 5:02. there is a very eclectic approach here, in case it wasn't obvious in my writeup, and those always toe a fine line. for every one track that really nails the aesthetic of varied and different but approachable, there's like ten really weird space-cadet synplant randomizer AI tracks that just don't work. i think this is one of the successes. such a wide variety of approaches throughout that are way more than the sum of their parts. YES

ooh, haven't had a chiptune in ages that i've judged. it sounds great right off the bat. 1:00's the initial hit that the remixer says was the main content, and that's a great bit to build a track around. the groove immediately after is also excellent. the transition at 1:32 is actually pretty abrupt, but i didn't have concerns about the rest of the transitions - for example 2:35 is great. the flutters that come in right after this are just perfect. the beat at 3:11 was great and very catchy. that grooves out for a bit until we hit the ending, which is as MW said pretty abrupt. this is a fun listen. it sounds like i'd expect a chiptune to sound and it's got some fun elements to the arrangement. nice work. YES

the dark humor in the name is just hilarious. the triplet intro next to the duple lead initially was a little confusing for the first few seconds, but the first thirty seconds definitely have way more arrangement than any of the previous PP remixes i've heard. when the kick finally really hit at 1:02, i was really feeling it. this style definitely fits the original more than a traditional house approach. 1:32 is another break, building through melodic usage in a variety of synths to get back to a build beat at 2:24 and the full sound at 2:39. there's a short outro starting at 3:24 and it's done. it's pretty straightforward, and a good adaptation especially compared to some of the previous stuff you've submitted. it's great to continue to see progress in your craft. YES

first five seconds: after i heard the clarinet i went and looked who it was, and i was right! it's General Goofball back with another awesome polka. i can't wait. points off for no puppet video this time. there's a few super minor timing issues in the first 30s or so in the clarinet, and a few articulations i may have tried to do slightly differently, but honestly this is a really impressive job on a pretty tough piece for the clarinet, especially articulation-wise. there's some silly fingers around 1:17 but that's really it. i laughed out loud at 1:43. i don't know why i didn't expect it. amazing. what a great tune. i love it. it's got so much arrangement crammed into just over two minutes, it sounds great, and it's just a fun listen. YES

11 minutes? and three Ys already? this should be a treat. intro piano is pretty stilted, and the intro in general is kind of meh between the strings and the obviously fake flute. the guitars come in at 1:00 and it's clear what kind of track this'll be. the initial band sound is both lacking in low end overall (the whole first section has a bump at about 95hz and not much below it) and has a lot centered in that low-mid range which leads to a pretty narrow soundscape despite the cymbals and other high-freq instruments in the mix. a glance at the track's shape indicates that i'll be hearing a lot of this (it's essentially a solid sausage for 8:45 with two <5s breaks), so i'll echo what darksim said a few times - this is good enough for such a huge track on a macro level, but the micro certainly isn't always there. this is really too big to do my normal breakdown section by second, so i'll call out a few favorites - 4:30's break was fun, in general i liked the bass's tone (just wanted more bass presence), the minute or so starting at 6:01 was just superb as others have mentioned, and i really liked the transition from the megablast section through 7:45 into the subsequent section (volumization needs there notwithstanding). the ending overall conceptually was a nice idea, but again the lack of personalization in the piano was not a positive, and the strings were more designed to sit as a pad under a rock track than be used in an exposed fashion like this. it's not a big deal in the scope of the whole piece, just means the bookends of the work aren't as good as the solid middle. what a blow this track is. really fun. YES

intro has a lot of sfx and random-sound sounds that come together to make a rough beat under the ghost arp. we get some melody at 0:30 or so, very chopped up and strange-sounding intentionally so. layering in some plectral instrumentation as well on top obfuscates the melodic material, and the percussion is pretty loud through here. 1:16 is a big stylistic shift, both in terms of time signature and in terms of instrumentation. the heavily filtered strings here are pretty grating and really loud, and it's hard to differentiate between them, the treble content in the very weird bass synth, the ghost arp, the melodic stutter synth, and the plectral instrument that you've had going. it hits more of a groove later on, and around 2:00 has kind of settled down, but it's still confusing to listen to. 2:07 is another shift, bringing back the industrial percussion under a 7/8 groove with more of the very intentionally overtoney bass doing stuff under the stuttery synth. the hard break at 2:40 was confusing to me, as i didn't get why you'd want to just shut off the track in the middle without there being a clear resolution or build section around it. there's some more ghost castle lead played as the melodic content and then it's just done very suddenly. looking at the freq analysis confirms what i felt was confusing to me from an auditory perspective - the bass instrument (which doesn't really ever venture below about 100hz from what i can hear) is by far the loudest element in the mix, both the fundamental and the first overtone. it's fairly confusing from an auditory perspective to listen to something that features such a high fundamental, especially with the heavy variance in styles throughout the track. the section at 1:16 is a good example - there's nothing to ground the track, and so many elements are in the same aural area that it makes it hard to differentiate and really listen to them. it's very tiring on the ears. i really want to like this track. the creativity in choices of synths and approach is really neat as expected from eino, the sources are a fun combo, and the arrangement is interwoven nicely. ultimately though it just doesn't sound good - the heavy layering of instruments in the same freq range is intensely tiring. i was only able to get through two listens before my ears felt quite pressured, and the middle section is most of where that came from. the track also is meandering and lacking cohesion, which combined with the lack of real dynamics throughout makes it difficult to follow and stay with what's going on at any given time. there certainly is a ton of source used in creative ways, but the track still manages to feel inchoate. i think you need to spend some time breaking up the blocks of instruments in the same freq range, and then re-volumize everything so that the instruments that are the loudest at any given time are what you want the listener to be listening to. right now the melodic content is never the main thing, which isn't a great result. also consider adding more to the bass end of the bass instrument while still keeping the weirdness of the upper overtones so as to ground the mix more. NO

initial hit sounds just great. melody intros at 0:15, and is pretty straightforward the first time through. gario's right in that there's a ton of fun background content through this entire first section, and the heavy sidechain reminds me of the corel prison mix that haroon put out 20 years ago. i didn't mind the hard sidechain through this section. there's a break at 1:31, and we're back at it at 1:50. this section is very close to the first representation of the theme outside of the melodic doubling (and eventual tripling) until we get to the B section which has a direct countermelody added into the rest of the mix. this is still quite similar to the earlier section. there's a hard cut at 2:44 for a piano interlude, which was both needed at that point and unexpected. it's nicely written and builds back up nicely to a final blow through the B melodic material before toning it back at 3:53 and reducing down to a final hit. this is mastered beautifully. we rarely get tracks that have such a well-defined freq spectrum. the remix sounds awesome and the kicks are appropriate protein-rich. this is a piece of cake for me. i get not being into the heavily-sidechained sound, but the arrangement is fine and the track's overall sound is great. nice work. YES

low and slow intro, and we get some nasty bass at 0:28 contrasted against the percs and pads. beat comes in at 0:57, and there's some fun filtered patterns being played in here as well. the iconic arpeggio is up top and throughout this section. 1:40 gets us a break and some sliding synths, and then we finally get the melody at 1:54. it's heavily automated as expected, with lots of slides and volumization elements. a sustain at 2:38 finishes the first instance of the melodic material. i'm noticing at this point that the arpeggiated instrument has been hammering away for about two minutes, and it's starting to be a little much. thankfully there's some other elements coming in as we get through 3:15 to draw attention away from it. we get some violin at 3:36, and it is quite striking. very well-played. the orchestral taikos (sounds a bit like a bamboo drum actually) are pretty fierce through this and the entire soundscape is pretty dense at 4:15 - clearly a lot went into making that section not be a mess. the soundscape clears up more around 4:20, and the violins and eventually new filters escort us towards a washed ending. this is pretty superb overall. it definitely achieves something that i haven't heard before from the piles of AA remixes that are out there. excellent work. YES

what a weird-looking waveform. heavily offset. boy, what a love-it-or-hate-it sound initially. the lead's long attack is certainly a choice. i don't care for it at all, and it does sometimes get buried. the backing parts have some really neat ideas going on too. there's a lot of little blurbs and bleeps that are neat to keep discovering as i go through it. there's a bit of an sfx break in the middle at like 2:06, and then we're back at it with some squelchy bass. this section sounds very similar to the opening albeit in a higher key and with the bass synth under it. there's a short build with the B theme, and then at 3:00 we're back to the A theme but with some more countermelodic content this time. the stutter synth here sounds great to give the very verby background some structure. 4:01 is a big build that essentially goes to the end and that's it. i think i land on the other side of the fence from MW here. the rest of the mix is solid and the arrangement is great, and i don't think those leads are really enough for me to NO this. YES

boy, what a pretty piece. it's too bad i can barely hear any connection to the original. there's so much patience in the approach and so many instances of letting the music dictate the tempo and instrumentation instead of the other way around. there are certainly a lot of three-note patterns in this, unfortunately the majority of them aren't following the rough shape of the motif that is kind of the defining element of the original, making it hard to correlate elements. i think MW's point - that it's unrecognizable without knowing what the original is - is valid. it's certainly not required that the track's style or melodic representation be 1:1 with the original, but it should be pretty clear what you're going for. unfortunately that's not the case here. NO

lmao, this writeup is nuts! thank you for the detail, although maybe half of it belongs in a tumblr post more than here. not a big deal either way. intro is primary SFX that isn't super balanced between ears. 0:48 is where stuff starts to come in. the violin sustains feature an extremely slow attack and a weird filter on it so they don't sound particularly realistic. this section definitely feels like it's meandering a bit, and while i understand theoretically where you're going, it doesn't clearly relate to the original even from a subtractive perspective without having the actual original melody there to tie the countermelodic material. 1:28 is where we start to get some original melodic material, and the main enemy of this piece becomes clear - the super-long and obviously artificial tail length of the reverb. 2:04's backing parts are very active, and the extended verb on them alongside the melodic piano's reverb is just a total mess. it doesn't sound dreamy or ethereal, it just sounds like a kid plunking assorted notes on the piano with the pedal down perpetually (is it clear i have three? because this is every music time ever for us). there's a big shift at 2:41 to some more meaty instruments. the strings lead-in at 2:36 is a dramatically different timbre than the rest of the work at that point - more flexible dynamics would help a lot. the verby keys are still in the background to the mix's detriment here. the instrumentation is not particularly complex either. there's not any writing i hear that is utilizing different rhythms at all, meaning it's just big elephantine blocks of chords moving around. if it was all strings in unison over a backing part, i'd get the puccini influence, but that's not what's happening here - this isn't a string tune. this is not benefiting from overly simplifying the rhythmic elements. additionally, the snares are too far in the back - they'd have more snap to them if they were in a real orchestra; here you just get the room sound and no attack. 3:23 adds more rhythmic writing in the melodic writing - but again, it's all these huge blocks of tone rather than contrapunctal writing. this is more of the same of the previous section, in that the lack of interesting countermelodic or backing writing is holding it back. 3:38 shifts dramatically again to a pretty random-sounding set of instruments doing random-sounding things. i did not get 'jig' from this section at all - there were no common jig patterns used here (ie. dotted quarter three eighths, or four sixteenths eighth followed by eighth four sixteenths), although the section was indeed in 6/8. i also found the various non-chord tones used to be ill-fitting with a sustained chord pad in the background. 4:45 goes off the rails a bit more as the sfx comes back in and the music-box runs down, but it's a cute idea. this kind of keeps noodling until it's done. i think larry's complaints about it being disjointed are very fitting. there are some individual high points here, but they're not cohesively fitted together, and while it's thought-out and clever, the macro arrangement and shape isn't enough to lift the major issues (too much reverb in sections, low-quality instruments, elementary part-writing, truly incoherent arrangement in some sections) past the bar. if this was realized in a near-realistic fashion i'd still probably say it was too scattered - so that tells me that my main issue is just that while there's a lot of source available here 'on the page', an arrangement is more than a scrapbook page with assorted things glued to it. the overall disinterest in viscidity is the biggest issue. i also think some time away from this one will work wonders. i'd recommend doing some active listening of compositions that mirror what you're trying to do here. find why you like them, and what elements in them stand out as being remarkable. do your best to find examples in the modern lexicon rather than going to the far edges of the media multiverse to get them. then compare those elements that you enjoyed most with how you realized them here, and see what differences pop up. i think you'd find that the heavily scattered approach you used here is to the piece's detriment rather than it's benefit. NO edit: i received some feedback that this writeup was not-well received by the remixer. on a readthrough, i can definitely see how my writing could have been taken poorly. i wanted to address a few points that could easily be taken from it that were not intentional. please note that i haven't modified the above vote at all at the time of this edit. i think the extended writeup is fine here. my thought with the intro was that most people don't read submission emails, and so by extension all that writing wouldn't have an eventual audience. i think the writeup is detailed and very helpful to understand the admittedly complex piece, and just figured it should go in a blog too so it's not lost. my last statement, surrounding music listening, was intended to be a developmental technique for audiating and understanding what causes our own writing to sound different from accepted standards. most pro musicians have rockstar mastering and synth skills, and understanding why your track sounds different from someone doing a track in a similar style is a helpful tool that i've found to be very useful over the years. i meant nothing more by this. in general, i approached this writeup from the (apparently incorrect ?) perspective that the remixer was a classically educated composer, and so i responded like i would to a compositional student. i certainly could have been far more specific in critiques rather than calling out generalities, and i separately should have highlighted some of the real positives in the track, like the complex song structure and sophisticated voice demonstrated throughout. i responded directly to the remixer on discord in more length. i'll be more careful going forward in my writing to use prose that is less likely to be perceived as denigrating. we are all here to improve and to develop our skills, and i should be helping with that and not discouraging from that.

intro musicbox doesn't sound a ton like it's in the same room as the piano. the trombone is indeed a little quiet for the intro, as is everything that's not the guitar. what beautiful writing, though. some more percussion come in at 0:40, and again there's an element of the percs not feeling like they're in the same space as the other instruments, especially the shaker that's used. some drumset comes in at 1:35 and the kick drum is just way loud compared to everything else. the piano and guitar take turns being more in the fore, which is nice, but in general the lead instruments are too quiet compared to the backing parts. what the drum is playing sounds stilted, too, there's not a lot of natural patterns going on back there. there's a recap of the intro as an outro, and that's that. this is a great arrangement in my opinion. the themes are combined and arranged beautifully and it sounds nice. the mix however is a mess, particularly from an EQing standpoint. there's a ton of sub-40hz content that's occupying the soundscape, and the drums overall are way too loud. some significant revolumization and EQing is needed to notch in the backing instruments so they settle next to each other without competing (the bass is especially egregious here). additionally, the entire track it sounds like there are instruments in totally different worlds. more attention to the room sound overall and application of reverb would be a very good choice. NO

the cello in the beginning is referencing source material - rather, that's what the remixer calls the source material. note, down a perfect (or augmented) fourth, up an octave, back to roughly the original note. the remixer is right in saying that there is little to the source, but reducing it down to just that specific riff is probably too reductive - there's other elements in the original that can be used, and i can't say that i hear them a ton in the first part. those first 48s or so are just the cello noodling around that pattern. some more actual instruments come in at 0:48, and they continue to reinforce that pattern on top of more sfx. 1:40 gets the pulsing bass line and more rhythmic representation of the original's chord structures and changes. so that's pretty clear. this is ultimately not really arranged - it's essentially the same as the original in the background instrumentation with some pre-recorded choir patches layered on top. at 3:19 there's a big shift to lean into those prerecorded choir samples, and then it ends. i actually don't have a problem with source usage in this track, and i'm surprised that the other j's said this was their dealbreaker. the first 48s of the cello wandering around the four-note motif is what motivic arrangement sounds like. there is more than enough source in the first 3:19 of the piece, it just isn't all a very clearly delineated and honestly pretty conservative arrangement of the original like the middle third of the piece is. given the extremely simple nature of the original, the motivic approach for the first part of the track was a great idea. i found your more overt source usage in the middle of the track actually kind of lacking in comparison - it's essentially the same as the original with a bunch of pitched sfx over it. the third act of the piece is kind of just a neat soundscape and isn't super tied to the rest of the track until you look at the usage of rubato and a rigid tempo structure vs. a nonrigid structure. from that perspective, this is an ABA structure - rubato-heavy opening section, super rigid middle section with a strong beat, rubato-heavy closing section. that said, i don't have a problem relating that initial four-note motif to source, which gives you more than enough there. the first part is great in how flexible and exploratory it is, the second part is contrastingly kind of a disappointment but serviceable, and the end is a bookend tempo-wise but doesn't really relate to the rest of the piece. looking at this track from the top down rather than by piecing it out, i think that this track is less than the sum of its parts, but it's still over the bar. it sounds good and is mastered cleanly, it features some really interesting exploration of a manufactured motif from the original piece, and it has some fun stuff to listen to. i'll admit this is pretty close to the bar overall in terms of arrangement - i'm stretching to accommodate not the motivic section but the more conservative middle section. YES