prophetik music

classic original. intro is pretty in-line with the original, with some vocal washes over the top. i didn't catch any real differences from the original's arrangement outside the layered verby vox for at least the first minute. if anything, switching the supporting harmonic content from a plucked instrument to pads at ~0:38 was a downgrade. there's some nice scoring at the transition point to the B part of the theme at 0:56, but no changes to melody or chords, just nice layering. all bell and percussive instruments in this section are too loud. the flute realization of the melody is pretty boring and doesn't feel as alive as the original does. there's finally some more original atmospheric material at 1:38, with the addition of the orchestral percussion. the switch to an english horn for melody is nice, but it's overwhelmed by the rest of the background. there's some real neat added tension around 2:15, but then it's right back to the original material. there's a nice countermelody for this play-through of the B section, but the melodic content is getting lost still unfortunately. 3:15 is a significant shift in style. i think what it's doing is cool in a vacuum, but there's little if anything to tie it back to the first three minutes. and then it ends with 30s of silence. i believe that the tension-filled section at 2:15 was intended to be a precursor to this, but that's tenuous at best. there is some really great scoring and beautiful soundscapes in this. the attention on the whistle leads is great (although it then calls out how bog-standard the flute is in comparison), and the variety of percussion used and especially the transition at 1:38 sound awesome and really felt like the piece was about to break out. but the track is essentially twice through the original with nearly no changes (most of the orchestration is even in line with what's in the original, and is primarily a sound upgrade), and then a sound demo tacked on the end for another minute. there's nowhere near enough transformative arrangement to say that this can pass. what you've made sounds nice, and i get wanting to submit something because you can't go back to it, but i don't think this passes our bar. NO

great original. the audible action on the piano at the beginning and mirroring the voice with crotales/glock gives it such an intimate quality despite the lush orchestral sounds. ori's soundtrack is very good. the concept here is very interesting. the heavy manipulation of the melodic content via slicing and use of negative space is much more evocative than i expected. i generally don't like the clipping artifact that you get from slicing without regard to the end of the waveform but it acts as a percussive element to keep track of what's going on. regular changing of the soundscape between heavily verbed and very in-front also helps to differentiate and focus the melodic recollections. i particularly like the progression you get around 1:03. there's a very legato, drawn-out set of chords that slowly gets more warped as the (now-familiar) stutter pattern above it shifts more and more towards slices so short that they have no tone. that progresses in the opposite direction after about 1:29, and rather than focusing on the syncopation and stutters from the beginning, forms more of a ballad/chorus section until it gets washed out by the amp feedback. the following section is pleasingly regular and forms a good coda for the work. there's some silence there to trim but it's no biggie. this is, as most of michael's works are, simultaneously engaging and challenging to listen to. there's a clear arc and journey to the song's structure (as ori is mostly about the journey, this is a great example of the game influencing the music's arrangement), there's a clear technique used throughout in a variety of ways, the original track is visible throughout, and it's mastered intentionally and with a deft touch. this is a great remix. YES

oh, what a great idea. this fits so well together. the rhythm guitar is super aggressive and widely panned which i like in this style. the drums are pretty standard outside a few big fills but sound great and do a great job keeping it driving too. there's some well-timed breaks and the pick-ups like at 2:04 are definite head-bangers. the half-time feel around 2:28 was unexpected but helped to keep it feeling now. it kinda just ends, but that's stylistically appropriate IMO so that is fine. it definitely feels like there's no bass, which is weird because there's buckets of sub-bass content if you look at the freq plot. i think DS's idea of going through and doing more mastering work makes a lot of sense. this track's reliance on the guitars to do big rhythmic elements in conjunction with the bass requires a super-clean, super-punchy mix (can't help but think Disturbed or Breaking Benjamin with the guitars tuned so low), and right now it is very muddy in the low mids while simultaneously not having much bass presence. i do think that the EQ is enough to sink this, although it honestly sounds decent right now. i might be making perfect the enemy of good, but i think this needs an EQ pass to at least filter out the sub-40hz content. beyond that, i like the arrangement and i love the vibe. NO edit: i was making perfect the enemy of good. this isn't pro mastering and it doesn't have to be. this is over the bar, although i'd really like another mastering pass. YES

the opening features a lot of subtle synths and a really great adaptation to the vibe from the original. the style adaptation is really great. the lead saw that's imitating the guitar, however, despite a bunch of detail put into the attach, glide, and release, just sounds 10x too loud and really doesn't fit what's going on behind it. all of the backgrounds are more interesting unfortunately. it picks up a lot from a dynamics perspective at about 1:07, and this sounds great. the saw lead clearly was volumized for this section and left alone too much in the opening. there's a break for about 30s that is similar but not the same as the opening, and then we get a more intense section driven by bass and drums. the saw is back from a melodic standpoint, but the piece lacks some sense of verve through this section until maybe 2:50. there's enough ancillary countermelodic content there to finally really flesh it out enough to feel full. there's an outro that's essentially the beginning, and then it ends. i agree with MW in that it feels less than the sum of its parts. there's some neat ideas in the opening that are rehashed twice more in similar fashions, the lead saw is just too aggressive and in the fore for the opening, and it doesn't feel like it progresses despite moving through some pretty different adaptations of the melody. i think more attention to the soundscape after the opening section and subsequent work on mastering would help a ton. NO

what a creative, weird take on these two. i really like the vibe you've crafted with the glitchy drums, the long-tail sustains, and the different arpeggios in each ear. there's a ton of stereo separation going on and i'm here for it, i think it really allows the two sources to show up in a way that i wouldn't have expected. i also really appreciate that you don't really care about sticking with the tonality as much and get into the glissandos and detuning a bit. i love it when concepts in the originals inform the remix and this does that. the source usage is consistent but definitely tenuous. i would have missed a lot if i hadn't had the breakdown. tbh though that's a fun thing since it's rewarding future listens. there's more than enough here though. what a great track. i love how out there it can be. such a unique take on two great originals. YES

the intro is really, really dense. it's hard to find much to grab onto, although i like the LFO'd vibrato on the synth at 0:20 a lot. the intro does a nice job building up the muffled soundscape up to the piano coming in. there's a pulsing synth that comes in at 1:24 that does a great job of giving the track some more feel of time to it. there's a kind of surprising shift at 1:57 where the bass just disappears. it gets pretty thin and loses the great feel of the earlier section as a result of that. i like the detuned leads and continued motion, but it sounds tinny here. the bass comes back in at 2:44 and it feels a lot better from then on out. around the time the melody comes back at 2:44, i'm starting to get tired of the ambience despite it feeling more fleshed out. there are some changes that are going on, but the overall feel could easily be mistaken for the earlier instance of the melodic content. i'd want something big here to differentiate it. and then it ends? what is that? it didn't even feel like you were done and there's a fadeout. that's a lazy ending. at least go to the root chord first. i actually was pretty OK with this until the ending, but that put me over the edge. i think the middle section needs some bass to root it. i think the recapitulation needs something to differentiate it from the beginning. the ending needs to exist. but i love the muffled, closed-mouth-humming feel of the track overall, and i think there's some really great synth work in there dressing it up. i don't mind how mid-heavy it is (although i'd love to hear some sparkles of higher stuff occasionally like what chimpa mentions). this is neat! it needs some more dressing, i think. NO

as a note, i am evaluating this in comparison to the original, with ben prunty's version as a corollary but not directly involved other than to insure that it's not a rip. compared to the original, this is highly evolved and has a lot of new stuff and new concepts. compared to ben's, it's different enough. i don't know if i'd call it derivative, but this felt similar to me to the alternate versions of tracks from Crypt of the Necrodancer that OCR folks worked on. there's a lot of similarities in the approach and instrumentation, but within that framework, there's a lot of variation. sometimes fences result in a more creative approach since you're working around stuff you wouldn't have thought about before. i found the synth lead that is prevalent at 1:47 to be grating and lacking in movement, and would have preferred some envelope to mix it up. other than that, i didn't really have quibbles with any of the instrumentation options, and i think it sounds pretty good from a mastering perspective. i like how different several sections feel - the opening, 0:57, and 1:47 all have dramatically different vibes while remaining cohesive. nice work =D YES

ddrkirby is one of my favorite remixers on OCR, and this is a great example of why. breadth in his approach, heavily rhythmic and focused as much on the spaces as the notes, overall high level of quality, and a consistent ability to find ways to cram even more detail into the little corners of each track. this track is slammin and i love it. the pacing of the track really stands out to me. there's a clear refrain that's higher energy than the rest that you want to come back to, and several distinct spaces that are created within the track (the different solo sections, the break at 2:28, the building action into the break at 3:27) that all feel perfectly timed and intentionally placed. the ending doesn't feel out of place or sudden, and it does a good job referencing the beginning of the track without it feeling cliched. the source material is present throughout and the mastering is big without feeling too loud or crushing specific instruments. this is a very good remix. excellent work. YES

the initial presentation is great - this sounds straight off a post-grunge album, right down to the cleaner hats, wall of sound guitars with bass mirroring the melodic material, and low-mid-heavy EQing. the drums are super compressed but it's def a stylistic sound. you'll want to probably put your overhead cymbals on a different bus to avoid them compressing each other too much when you get more complicated with them. lastly, it's tough to hear the rhythmic aspects of the bass guitar, but it seems like they're there - adding some high end to the bass's tone so the picking is clearer would help, as would adding some space in what it's playing like what the guitar's doing. from an arrangement perspective, the first few minutes are pretty straightforward. i would have wanted to see some of the stuff that happens after two minutes used earlier to mix it up, and then have a recap. it's a fun track though! i like the original material you created, i just think it needs to be more cohesive in its usage. this is fun, but it isn't there yet. NO

interesting crossover idea. definitely works. mastering-wise, i definitely hear where my fellow judges are coming from. the clipping/distortion at the beginning is distracting and doesn't sound good. the bass and kick have a ton of extra bass boosted in there that sounds very unnatural - a huge peak in the ~90hz range, with a bunch of sub-bass content around 30-33hz that is likely adding to it feeling distorted. the guitar lead is overwhelmed by the backing pads and drums to the point where it is hard to hear. i believe MW is talking about the 12-13khz range for there being something high pitched - i can't hear it, but my wife can, and i get a bit of a turned stomach from listening to it as well. that'll need to be cribbed out (a tight notch filter could do it, as could a general low pass to fluff up that freq range more). the arrangement and concept is fun. it's pretty straightforward melodic work, but the vocals add a ton to the drifting feeling, and the open maj7 chords also lend themselves to that too. i like this a lot, honestly. i think it needs some mastering fixes that would be simple. either a notch or a low pass to fix the high freq, and a high pass to filter out the sub content, and this is there. the EQ boost you've given your bass/kick could be turned down a bit too so it's not so boomy. this is probably OK to pass right now, but i'd like to see those changes take place before i am unconditional with my vote. YES CONDITIONAL

i love the genesis's bass synths, they're all so fat. great original track. the first thing that jumps out to me is how thin this sounds. you've got a huge focus on the bass right off the bat (since that's the big thing in the original, too!), and it just sounds like FL default sounds with no EQ. there's no punch to the tone and it feels pretty loose. some real solid workshopping will take that from a time filler to being a highlight for the track. i think darksim's comments around vanilla synth design and that it's far longer than it needs to be are 100% on the nose. there is a lot of source-similar material here, and IMO not enough arrangement to justify multiple restatements of the same (excellent) original melodic content. furthermore, the synths aren't stuff i want to listen to for seven minutes - they alternate between generic and not particularly satisfying, although you've got some fun wide-LFO stuff that is neat and used as sfx in a few places. i think i am less high on this track than the rest of my peers. i think this has some bones, but it needs some significant workshopping. if this was a four-minute track that focused on the best bits (the slick bass riffs, the great melodic content, the driving beat), cut out the cruft and filler, figured out the ending better, and really worked on crafting synths vs. choosing presets and dropping them in, i think you could have something that was really fantastic. as it is, it's both twice as long and half as interesting as it could be. NO

ff8 has some real weird tracks. i love that about it. this is a super interesting concept. i wouldn't have ever seen a rolling jazz gait fit either of these tracks, but they dovetail very nicely together with this level of expressive playing. i love how much space you put into the arrangement, letting some of the chords ring and sit for a bit. the increasing intensity and tempo at 1:48 is great too - the hurried feel is very disconcerting, especially paired with a bunch of normal major chords on top with no extensions, it just feels very different. coming back to the more introspective A material at 2:55 is a great way to end it. easy vote. excellent work. YES

what a great original! i knew nothing about this game but recognized the composer's style right away. this is a really punchy mastering job. the beater head of the kick and the snare are both pretty loud compared to everything. it also feels very center-channel. 0:56 is messy, hard to tell if it's from performance timing or effecting. there's a weird splash in the right ear that gets used a few times and sounds odd. there's a nice break at 1:06 thematically, but MW is right in that the melodic content gets hidden due to a combo of too-loud backing guitar and not-clear-enough arrangement in the orchestral parts. to be honest, though, overall it's a great big fierce feel to the whole thing, and i really like that i can feel the kick and chugs in my gut. the solo really whips the llama's ass and doesn't overstay. the drums overall are fairly bog-standard but there's some fun stuff that they're doing especially near the end, and the track does a good job of saying what it wants to say and then being done. as is, i think it's over the bar once we trim off the end silence. if this goes back for more work, i'd suggest turning down the kick beater tone some, the snare a bit, the chugs a bit, and focusing more on clarity in your lead guitar tone. YES

not a lot to go with on the original here. using it as a structure to build atmosphere from works fine. i'm not a huge fan of the fadeout when you could have just sat on the root to end it, but it wasn't terrible, just unimaginative. i didn't notice any specific issue with overall volume. there's a bit of headroom on here, and the majority of the peaks are single snare hits vs. anything mix-related. the main rhythm guitar is a bit loud and the drums are definitely louder than they need to be, and i think pulling them back would balance it a bit more, but again it's not egregious. the arrangement concept is solid given there's essentially no melodic content. i think production is fine, if not particularly strong. nothing really shines here but also nothing is really sticking out as "this isn't good enough". i think this is over the bar. YES

that part at 0:18 is absolutely a wrong note. the arpeggio in the beginning is outlining (i think) a Gsus with a flat 7 (G C D F) based around Gm, and the bass comes in and plays G B natural A, so you've got a C (fourth) next to a B natural (major third). this is extra weird because GCDF is not clearly in a key enough for the root to be super clear (could be a C2sus, F2 with a 6, a Dm with a sus...etc) so the B is super unsupported, and a Bb is elsewhere in the background, making it even worse. having the bass play Bb A or C A instead of B A would fix it. the jumps right after to other pitches are fine. it's still a little weird later because there's definitely a Bb in the pads somewhere and you've got the bass just jumping to a non-chord tone. i think the percs sound find. it's a really 80s sound, with a punchy beater-forward kick and a fat snare with less highs. i do think it would benefit a bit from more brightness but it is fine the way it is. the transition at 1:35 is actually pretty well handled, although a bit jarring since it feels very different from the beginning. i wouldn't mind if the drums did more in here outside of the fills, like some tom stuff, but it's a nice transition piece between fairly repetitive sections sandwiching it. the ending does a good job of setting down. i like going out of time at the end to help it kind of trail out. this is a cool idea for a track overall. i think. it's overly repetitive, and there's that weird bass note error, but the rest of the ensemble sounds good and is meaty. i think that it can't really go out with that B natural in the bass, but that will be a super easy fix and then it's ready to rock. YES (conditional)

this is a top ten original for me. i know everyone's done arrangements of it but the original is just so good. opening is pretty generic, albeit fine. the beat that comes in is great - love how dry it is compared to everything else, the bass has a great amount of blatt to it, and the wet melodic synth with a bunch of glide is great. it's pretty straightforward, but the work in the bass and some of the fadeout bits help keep it moving. there's a notable transition around 2:00 into more adaptive territory with a new synth and some great chord changes, and then a slick synthwave transition into a great IV-V-vi-I chord progression that still feels like the original while also being primo driving music. and then it ends, and that blows, because i wanted another solo section screaming over the top of a mid-range melody recap while the drums kept pumping and moving forward building to a big high release with the arpeggio synths trickling away in the background amidst shimmery glam pads and a bass pedal on the root. ugh. darn it. realistically, i want you to finish this track. but what's here is still great and absolutely worthy of making the front page. chimps is right though that this could go from fine to outrageous with, like, two hours of work. YES I GUESS edit: better ending. got a little cute with the chord structure, but it lets everything down much better than it did before. this is out of I GUESS territory ? YES

fun idea. i like the high energy from this arrangement. the brass are fun if repetitive, although they're a bit loud throughout. the violin on the melody is also super repetitive - there was a lot of opportunity there for more variety in what it was playing, but there's nothing specifically wrong with it. the violin and cello harmony parts are in one version of minor and then switch to a different mode when it's just the violin at the end of the track, but that's not wrong, it's just not properly set up or supported so it sounds weird. the track feels very low-mid heavy, and a quick glance at the spectral analysis confirms that there's a ton of content between 100-200. i suspect it's mostly the bass attack and the low end of the guitars. opening that up a bit would allow a lot of other stuff to speak easier, and would mean it wasn't as tiring on the ears. there's a fadeout but it has a hard stop in there too. i wouldn't mind a more subtle logarithmic or s-curve fadeout. overall this is a fun package. there's a great beat, some unexpected choices of instrumentation, and the track doesn't overstay its welcome. YES

pretty opening, although the sub-bass water effects (i think?) were very strange and kind of jarring. there is not a lot of personalization / care taken with articulations throughout. it is a lot of full sustains with no breaks in any instrument, and it does not sound particularly natural. the horn sample at 1:49 is super bad. the tremolos in the string bass around 2:13 are also really bad - there's no resonance from the instrument or natural fade, just an abrupt stop every time they change notes. the song kind of just ends. there's a lot of evolving background work, which is nice. i think that overall the ensemble has a nice lush tone with good stereo separation especially in the middle of the track when you've got most of the group playing. MW put it pretty well. rebecca did rebecca things, and it makes for a flawed but palatable track. YES

funny writeup. love the hatchet line. this has a real dark vibe to it. i agree it's very light in the highs, to the point it feels kind of weird on headphones. there is also WAY too much sub-40hz content, anything with reasonable bass response is going to be absolutely wiped by it. not many tracks need 20hz at -19db, or 12hz at -24db. filtering out the mess below 35hz and a hard cutoff at 20hz would be a huge improvement in the feel of the track so it's not so thick-feeling. the melody is recognizable right away, and the big parts of the track have a really big, beefy, epic feel to it that's interestingly conflicted against synthwave's usual feel. i particularly liked the intentional stripping down of the texture for some of the melodic content - it is great contrast and a really neat way to focus on what's important there. the pitchy part at 1:14 is just not doing it for me personally, but i think the pitch drop into 1:32 was nice and a clever idea for a transition. the slides in the leads (like 2:04) sounded straight out of Oblivion, love that. the ending is very sudden and doesn't feel like an ending. this is an interesting one. there's some intentional lo-fi techniques used that work in the bounds of the piece but individually are pretty weird - lots of intentionally atonal or overtone-heavy cluster pitches used, 6/8 instead of a 4-based time signature, tons of filtering to remove highs on purpose...and then the crazy bass response. i think that this is right on the border for me. i rarely use conditional but i think that fits here, as there really needs to be a filter on the low end before it'd be functional. that's a quick change though, the export will take longer than the configuration. CONDITIONAL edit 6/15: i've been informed this track can't be loaded in its original form. i still want the filter on the low end - i feel we could do that in post and it wouldn't be bad? - but not enough to hold this back still. YES

that's a fun intro. i really like the repetitive synth initially, and the ongoing shifts to the filter and release on it. as more stuff is added in, i think MW's right - it just doesn't really progress anywhere. there's a ton of interesting stuff going on everywhere - the sweeps, the heavy stereo separation, the ongoing vocal noodling - this all does a nice job keeping it active, but it doesn't feel like it progresses. every time there's a natural breakpoint for something to change (1:44 and 2:30ish's build), there's not really a functional change to the track, it's just more of the same. i found the guitar that comes in at 2:35 to sound really non-idiomatic and strange. the changes at 3:28ish are nice, but too little too late. it's still the same voice, repeating synth, and drums as the beginning. we're at four minutes of cinematic slams - it's just too repetitive here. i love the arrangement and the liberty taken, but i'm done with it at about 2-2.25 minutes. finding new ways to keep it fresh (a new repeated tone instead of the synth? mix up the drums? lean away from vox and into the other ethnic concepts more?) would help a ton. NO

this is already NO'd based on 3N at this point, so i won't do a full commentary, but rather just talk about the harmonic content. although there is a TON of lows from the various keys that is not good, it's mega mud city even if there's no mud in space. my one comment overall is going to be that you can make a sparse, spare soundscape that evokes the deep nothingness of space without cutting it down to two instruments and an echo pad and 65x too much reverb. there's a lot more that could be done in here both in terms of synthesis and in terms of countermelodic content and sfx to keep it interesting without just repeating it twice and slapping a major chord on the end. space is simultaneously empty and enormously full of otherworldly things that we can't comprehend. i get that you're going for mass effect galaxy map feel, but there really does need to be more here. i actually like what the instruments are being played (although it's hard to hear everything over the mega sustain), but intentional simplicity in a track is actually pretty complicated usually. i'd encourage you to experiment more. re: harmonies, much of what could be called weirdness that i'm hearing is a result of long-sustain stuff that has a lot of overtones. the stuff kris is talking about didn't sound 'wrong' on first listen. at least part of it though maybe is because it's in g dorian (key of F, sounds like it has a flat 3, normal 6, flat 7). dorian has some odd chords, not the least of which is a major IV (normally in minor, which dorian feels like, iv is flat) and a flat ii (in minor, ii is diminished and often used in fully diminished form with a vii as the root, or as a major chord with a flat vii in melodic minor, both are used in dominant fashion and dorian ii isn't). so i think it's because you're expecting to hear minor stuff and you're hearing dorian, and it feels weird. those weird chords are used in odd inversions too which doesn't help, it's unsupported and so it's hard for your ear to sort in the short time it hears it. there aren't many Es in this piece to wake you up to that it's not minor either, but that's not a problem, just not ideal. so i don't think there's anything wrong about the harmonic content specifically.

why are we using the excuse of your otherworldly mouse holding to call you a monster? we all know what you are.

original decision: updated vote: it is louder, and the hiss is not audible to me anymore. interesting to know it was indeed mechanical. the clarinet is still a little pitchy but i'm not noticing it as much this time around. this is a very evocative and interesting concept. i love that it's heavily based in repetition without sounding repetitive. i also really enjoy the live performances. thank you for taking another look! this is a great addition to the community. YES

the piano and drums do sound a bit disjointed in the intro, like they're not near each other in the mix, and there's a ton of sustain tone in the piano which sounds weird (like there's not enough attack and too much sustain tone). i also wasn't a fan of the drums being very rigid - there's some variation in dynamics, but they are mega-on the beat perfectly. some quant there would help that a lot. this is a subtle thing but immediately gave me a weird taste when listening to it. once everything gets going, though, as the other judges said, it feels better. the bass is a little quiet/hard to hear considering how small the ensemble is. i'd like to get a bit more of the finger tone off of it - some more treble would do wonders to help it be more audible. it's doing fine stuff so it just needs a bit more. that lead synth is so blah. it's played fine, but there's no tonal variation, essentially no dynamics until the end, and hardly any breaks. this is a hard pass by me - there needs to be some sort of envelope or variation on this. even just turning down the sustain volume to give it some natural movement off the attack would be a huge change. the intro feels weird, and the drums intro and outro isn't my favorite, but that synth is a deal-breaker for me. some more attention to the body of it would be huge. adding more space to the performance (and some glide) would also help vary it up a lot. as it is though, this feels like a workshop track still. NO

big synthy intro, and the first presentation of the drums and melodic content has a great vibe. the leads are a bit boring tone-wise, but are effectively used. the bass here is great, driving it forward, and the snare helps with that too. if anything this feels pretty frenetic for the way it sounds immediately after 1:03. i'd like the glitching better if it was specifically applied to instruments instead of the main. i agree it's a speed bump. the half-time section at 2:05 is fun. i like the envelope play that's going on in that synth right after, and there's a bunch of on-point long-attack synths that add the glam to the sound that's just perfect. fadeout is kinda blah and probably should be cut after about 3:16. this is definitely above the bar, nitpicks aside. YES