prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

interesting idea. initial cortez riff is right off the bat. this is a natural genre adaptation imo from the original, still goofy like the game but way heavier than the PS was able to do. i actually think the dirty vocals are a bit loud relative to the truly awesome backing parts. there's some really fun lyric/music elements in here. the stomp section and the d-d-d-die section are really well done actually, and the harmonized section at 1:46 reminded me of the fall out boy song about what you did in the dark. it's also a lot more narrative than i expected based on the description. there's a big break/shift at 3:19 which does a nice job of breaking up what had been over three minutes of just continual balls-to-the-wall for a while. i expected a t-pain mansion-wiscansin rhyme for the rhyme between n-sane and again at the end, but it still sounded fine. this is really fun! the rock itself is super enjoyable - i can definitely see people asking for an instrumental version of this - and the vocals overall are well-handled. i actually understood most of the dirty stuff which is a first. what a fun track. YES

lot of sfx and tempo-synced stuff to start, in particular a lot of panning elements. most of the first 45s are heavier in my left ear. i don't think that's intentional. there's a significant build into 0:55, and the first big hit of everything at 0:55 also sounds a bit weird - the bass peaks at like 70hz instead of 30-35hz like i'd expect. is there a filter on this that's cutting out subbass content there? there's also a big notch around 350hz and i can kind of hear the scooped mids there. paging resident primate @Chimpazilla for help with what i'm hearing. apes together strong. the flourish at 1:08 that's mirrored in a lower instrument is a neat idea. there's a break at 1:23 or so that again has a lot of tempo-synced stuff going on, and especially the swooping effect got a little irritating after the first few times i heard it. the beat comes back after that and quickly goes back to the tempo-synced quieter stuff - some very fast transitions there. there's an interlude with chips at 2:07 that again sounds hollow with whatever filter's on it, and a half-time section after that that i really dig, and then another half-time section that's different and i dig that a lot. this is a great break section, still featuring some of the tempo-synced stuff but really shifting the vibe a lot. the heavily distorted synth that comes in at 2:55 was >9000x louder than i expected and was probably too much. the following trap-adjacent (pitfall?) section with the funky hats is again a neat change in style. it's very busy and probably could use a bit of trimming down/volumizing down stuff that's less important (just a little, this part is honestly real close). there's a big build into 3:38 that really subverts expectations with the drop. nice use of the vocal clip to further that subversion. eventually it picks back up at 3:50 and goes through the melodic content from Towering Mountain. the transition out of that section (or lack of one) is pretty jarring. the following perc-less pad section loses a lot of energy fast, and the following detuned bell vibe is pretty minimal and felt like it lost some direction. i did like the shifts to chords that were added to that melodic snippet. i admit that i would have been very fine with a short outro after the section ending at 4:05 - the last section is very different and there's not a ton tying it to the first 80% of the track. i think that there's a lot of little things here that, if corrected, would result in a really ridiculously great track. i am particularly interested to see if we can figure out why the opening sounds like it's missing part of the freq range. that said, it's a really fun listen and does some super creative stuff with musical elements and especially with synth effects, although the mastering needs work. i think this track has a place on the site, if not now, then eventually. YES

arpeggio is in the piano right off the bat, much slower. really introspective texture initially. melody comes in at 0:31 and is beautifully articulated and realized. the overlapping vocal lines in the background form an interesting pad as they fade in and out, and there's some nice suspensions in there too. the initial runthrough of the melody is done at 1:48, and we get some more three-note snippets until it's done. the melodic representation here is articulated the same as the original and sounds very close to the original, so the artist is right - this is indeed pretty close to the original, but i don't think i'd call it a cover. the backing elements really flesh out some of the simple beauty of the melody line. whenever i think of how to handle conservative arrangement, i have to approach it from the perspective of "does this say something different than the original". often covers are just spicy versions of the original track. i don't think that's the case here. think about how Death On The Snowfield feels so different from the original despite being very, very similar to the original's basic structure. in this case, you take a track that is easily described as earnest or hopeful and make a much more introspective, rainymood-ish version of it. while the melodic content and chords aren't different, the significant changes in instrumentation and realization added to the sfx really make for a new work. this is pretty enjoyable. nice work. YES

submission email game is on point. initial beat is super 2002 in a good way. big snare comes in at 0:15 and then the melody's soon after. the vox sample took me by surprise but it's exactly as cheesy as i expected. i liked the shift of the beat right after that - it punches pretty hard and the melody snips in there are nice too. there's a break at 1:17 with a bunch of filtered elements. this goes through a run of the melody complete with faux-chorus pads, i love this vibe. there's a false build at 2:10 that opens up soon after to the first big beat again. this is 1:1 with the original starting at 0:15, I think, until the big transition at 2:54. after that is very similar to 0:47 but slightly different, until eventually the leads are doing different stuff for a bit. we get a break/outro starting at 3:25 and it's done. i would have liked to not see quite as much copy/paste at 2:25, but it's only 25-30 seconds and the section right after is similar but not exact to earlier. overall though the track has a great beat and hits hard. i like the sfx usage and the melodic content usage is fine. nice work. YES

classic original. starts with tampura drone and flourishes in the flute and sitar. remix really starts at 0:37 to my ear. percussion drops a bit at 0:55 for the first presentation of the melody. it's a pretty thin texture here - the hand drums are very clear and crisp, and the sitar's doing its thing, and the flute's got the melody, and that's it. it builds up a bit naturally by adding in a larger variety of drum hits. 1:34 adds some vocals - are these you? this was essentially one run-through of the original. 2:07 goes back to the first escalating chord pattern. it's still a pretty thin texture here, but the more heavy reliance on the drone and using the flute for some more solo stuff is nice. there's some more exploratory stuff through this section which was a good change to stretch out the remix scope a bit. eventually the vocals come back in again. 3:40 is another break with some more flute soloing and then it's done. this is actually pretty tough for me. on one hand, there's some really virtuosic flute playing which is fun to hear, the hand drums are interesting and well-realized and super crisp and clear, and i really appreciate the really light soundscape due to the smaller number of instruments. on the other hand, it's basically twice through the chord progressions and then a drum hit for an ending, and the entire first runthrough is pretty conservative. the sitar is also not particularly idiomatic throughout, and there's even some of what sound like sample retrigger spots that don't sound realistic at all. overall i think this is above our bar. from a realization and mixing standpoint, i like the soundscape a lot, and the flute performance is really great with a ton of really fun flourishes added. i'd have loved to see more alexis in the realization of the melodic line, like what you do halfway through the second run of the melody, and less original - you clearly have great ideas, so let them out more often! YES

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

metal af to start. the initial section with the growls sounds pretty solid, but i'll admit i can't understand a word of the clean vocals since they're so quiet relative to the rest of the track. they're also kind of treble-ly throughout. the track slammajammas through some really mean riffing and drum work for the first 1:50, and there's a bunch of the riffs from the original throughout so i'm good with the arrangement. this is a beast of an original to adapt into a vocal track - brandon does a really great job with a really rough melody line, honestly, even if the words are a bit difficult to fit in sometimes. given that the vocals aren't the focus of the track, i don't mind that the words aren't always really very fitting of the melody line. there's a break (>>??>>) at 1:55, and some fun stuff going on in there with the violin as a really out of nowhere add. i agree that the solo is all angles and sharp edges and i love it too. it goes through some more riffing and then it's done. this is super intense and i love it. virt's music is so technically proficient that we don't get nearly enough remixes of his stuff as i'd wish, so i'm all over this. your playing is proficient and your arrangement is solid and recognizable, and everyone who contributed really did a great job. nice work. YES

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

last time i voted on this, i NOd it due to volumization and soundscape issues as well as some coherence stuff. i think overall most of my concerns have been addressed. there's a bunch of stuff i would really not do (the bass hammer-on at 0:50, the bell arps being so overtoney and lacking fundamental at 1:50 for a minute or so, the overall lessening of focus on the melodic material vs. other elements), but my concerns around volumization and soundscape were addressed in a satisfactory manner. there's some really neat ideas in here that are much more evident now that i can actually hear them, and the overall song structure is better for it as well. YES

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

all doom remixes should be metal, don't @ me. opens aggressively, primarily focusing on the rhythmic riff at the beginning of the melodic section in the original as opposed to the arpeggio. that arp first comes in at 0:54, and it's adapted a bit to go over the top of the chord progression which is a fun idea. the leads have a bit less room tone on them than i'd expect, but they're clear and i like the combination of the lower lead and the arp at 1:35. there is a blastbeat section at 2:10 which is a tonal break from the first two minutes (which kind of do the same thing), and then we're into another arpeggio-driven section that's got real post-rock vibes with an extended range to the arpeggio lick. around the 3:15 mark i started to feel it was getting a little repetitive, and that's around when the outro was prepped and started, so timing-wise that's great. overall the band sound is solid. i wouldn't have minded a little more brightness in the bass tone, but i like the way the rest sounds so i'm willing to overlook that. as a band, it doesn't sound muddy or congested in the low mids. this is a fun track. nice job. YES

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

beat hits at 0:10 and is particularly dank. lots of darker, detuned tones used. it's an interesting palette, but i see why larry says it sounds underwhelming. i like the switch to the double-time beat at 0:43, but really don't like the super-wide juno lead as the beat is super crisp and it's very wide and sloppy-feeling. there's also not a ton going on in the soundscape outside the lead, bass, and drums there. there's a shift at 1:40 to the next theme, and it functions as a nice break. the arp section at 2:06 was straight out of 1997 and i liked that. the beat picked up at 2:25 amidst a flurry of key changes and trucked through some more melodic material before we get a recap and then an outro. the outro coming from the half-time beat is a little low-energy, but it's still doing a fine job settling the track. the last chord (possibly unintentionally?) goes from major to minor at the very end which is not something i cared for. i actually think this is really fun. the detuning throughout is a stylistic choice and really fits the vibe you're going for here. nice work. YES

i voted NO before, complaining about technical elements. piano is a much richer tone overall that doesn't kill my ears with the upper right hand. i think the room tone of the instrument is better too, but it's not obvious to me if that's just a result of the piano tone being more accessible as it's not like you layered in concert hall spacing. like LT said - it still feels rigid in paces, there's still a few notes that aren't quite what i'd expect, and definitely doesn't feel like an acoustic piano (some of the hard note stops from a pedal lift are just very keyboardy), but this is much more listenable. thank you for taking the time to do some rework. YES

^ 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 =(

beautiful originals. opening is a vibe. the addition of electronic elements to the super-acoustic start is a cool idea. beat comes in at 0:34 with the melody from Moonlit Night and is much more upbeat than the original. snare is a bit loud when it finally comes in, and i wouldn't have minded hearing a bit more of the acoustic elements as the acoustic among other instruments gets a bit lost there after 1:22. there's a bit of a break at 1:38 and it feels kind of half-time here. the B section of Drowsy Sensation really works perfectly at 2:09 as a high point to the song under the groove you've got going at that point. there's a big dropoff at 2:42 and we get some pad and organ work with the bass still keeping it moving forward a bit. the acoustic comes back in at 3:14 and it's similar in instrumentation to the intro section. there's a bit of a ritard and then it's done. this last section is about a third of the piece and may be a bit long when it's all done compared to the bigger body of the work. overall this is a really fun track! it's got a great shape overall to it and flows well from theme to theme. i agree these originals really fit well together into a fantastic whole. i like your interpretation a lot. excellent work. YES

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