prophetik music

what a weird track for a remix. looking forward to this one. a pad and some some ideophone (kalimba, i'm assuming) and (sounds like live) flute start it off. there's some synth voice (i love the idea but the execution is very fakey) going through the ostinato. 1:22 is a kinda repeat of the beginning, and 1:44 is similar to the beginning section as well with some differences in how it's moved through. there's a very out-of-place panflute (?) at 2:14 that doesn't sound like it's in the same space as the other orchestral instruments, and then some fadeout. i feel like i've said this a lot lately, but this is a weird one. in terms of the original, there's very little recognizable melodic content, and the untimed nature of several of the instruments is a key aspect that's hard to represent in a DAW. there's some really interesting work in how the original's two primary parts play off each other while the bells bumble on in their own time-world behind everything else. in your version, you squared it up to a beat much more than the original was, and attempted to capture a repeating pattern for the 'melody' as opposed to the more exploratory original. i don't feel removing much of what made the original unique both to the in-game situation and to the soundtrack as a whole (the out-of-time background, the weird harmonies, the very un-melodic direction of the whole thing) is a positive. that said, the submission standards require identifiable source material and substantial, original arrangement, not commitment to the source material's context. in that regard, your ostinato version of the vox synth in the original and how you handle it does fulfill those criteria. i don't consider the arrangement to be remarkable however, and the lack of blending by the flute, vox synth, and panflute in the remix are pretty rough. the flute's performance is somewhat uneven from a volumization perspective (the loudest part of the track is essentially just the flute at one point) and has some tone and audible fingering issues, whereas the vox synth's vibrato is so consistent and strong that it actually sounds out of tune when it comes in. variance of the vibrato usage and speed would be much more humanizing if possible. the panflute just sounded very out of place as well - it did not feel it was in the same space at all. this feels like nitpicks, but the entire piece is like six instruments and three of them have pretty clear execution issues. i don't feel the arrangement makes up for it. it's honestly pretty close - the idea that's here is really interesting! - i just think that it isn't quite there. i could be convinced that i'm being too hard on it and i wouldn't be surprised to see other judges vote the other way on it. NO

fun original. lots of creative stuff going on in it. this starts off with some fun synth work that is reminiscent of the detuned stuff that comes in later in the original. there's a lot of aural exploration and playing with different synths - i particularly like how you continue to switch the lead instrument to keep a pretty repetitive melody fresh. this continues through around 2:30. the melody is prevalent through the entire thing, and it never stays in one vibe too long. there's a percussive break at 2:31 with some fun effects on the kick especially. the drums drop (they were getting a bit repetitive so that's good) and there's another big sweep into a new section at 3:20. around here we've heard that four-bar melodic bit quite a few times, so it's getting a bit tired even with the melodic instrument changing regularly. there's some new ideas at 3:31 that give it a much different feel, especially the synth solo through 4:23 (and subsequent C section from the original). there's a shift back to the initial groove around the five minute mark. a lot of what happens after that sounds like what was going on in the earlier parts of the piece, although i don't think it's quite a copy. the remixer drops some synths here and there and then sends it out with a short outro. overall i feel like it's four minutes of music spread over six. there's a lot of shifting around and clever synth work, but it's a short melodic fragment that you're representing and it stays essentially the same for most of the piece. while i think this one's over the bar due to the great presentation, i think you could have made a more cohesive package by actually playing with those modes you mentioned, or exploring switching up rhythms, chords, or notes in that four-bar fragment. that said, the mastering on this sounds pretty good and there's a lot of fun stuff going on, so i do think this one's good to go. YES

lol, a 109mb wav file for 3' 31"...that is high bitrate, wow. some great classical guitar to start it off, and then we're into rock mode. the band sound is solid and fun to listen to. i thought the snare had too little head tone (it's very treble-y) and the kick is hard to hear when the bass is playing. there's some more breaks with the acoustic guitar, and back to the big band sound for a bit (weird note at 1:20), and then there's a significant tempo dropoff. the middle section with the flute is a nice break but it spends a lot of time with at least one instrument being out of time, confusingly. there's a big band section after that again, and the guitar solo just straight up sounds like it's in the wrong key for a while. there's a lot of use of a sharped 4 and a flat 7 which just sounds strange to me. it's lots of notes and fun to listen to but it sounds like it is in an adjacent key (maybe a fourth down?), and it's out of tune to boot (notably at 2:11, 2:21, 2:32, and especially 2:43). from there there's a big blow through the melody once last time and an ending. from an arrangement perspective there's not much time spent on stuff that isn't original, so that's fine. from a mastering perspective there's some little things that persisted that i wasn't into, like the kick being hard to hear in the bigger sections and the snare being so artificially high in the sound spectrum. i found the solo guitar in the second half to be pretty off-putting as well as the middle break being out of time consistently between instruments. a lot of little things add up to make this not quite there. another mastering pass (if possible?) and some little cleanups would help a lot. NO

even for rebecca this track is way, way too quiet. peaks are nearly 5db too low, and realistically this is closer to -12db. i get that it's an artistic decision to be minimal, but there's too many tutorials around how compressors work for her to not be applying a default to these tracks. this is a really minimal original. i'm interested to hear how rebecca handles this. there's some inaudible stuff going on at the beginning, but the initial presentation of 'melodic' material is immediately recognizable. the overall panning is too aggressive (reducing it by half would be appropriate in nearly every instance) - for example the rainstick is exclusively in the right ear and it's used constantly. the violin harmonics are pretty, but they're really obviously looping and sound odd as a result. they also don't fade to nothing like strings should be able to, so the cutoffs not matching the other backing instruments also sounds weird. the added percussion though is (as expected) fantastic, and there's a ton of nuance going on with what they're adding. this is a tough one for two reasons. first of all, there's simply not much in the original, so calling this arrangement transformative is difficult. there's certainly a lot more here, and the added percussion, string tremelos, and other nuances make this a lot more fleshed-out. ultimately i do think the arrangement is pretty good considering what's in the original, so i think that part's fine. the mastering and execution of that arrangement is not well handled, however. this delicate of a soundscape leaves a lot of room for inconsistencies to show up, and we hear that in several places - the heavy panning of several instruments, the various pad instruments cutting off at different times, the obvious looping of the violin vibrato. they are very distracting from what otherwise would be a really neat piece. that's all aside from that you can't hear anything without turning this track up far too much. the claves/toka/stick hits push the max db up far too far - this needs a compressor with a very fast engage and a quick disengage to allow for the track's really interesting sound design to be heard around those unpitched instruments. i'm interested to see what the other judges say but i don't think i can pass this. the execution of it has too many issues that really impede the listening experience. NO

i'm with MW on this regarding source usage. it's prevalent enough for me. also, larry, just cut off the ten seconds of silence at the end and your valuation is fine. the main riff in the keys and bassline just sounds dope. the adaptation from the original arp absolutely makes the track. i love how you keep coming back to that initial presentation as a touchstone and then referring to it in modified forms via rhythmic and harmonic modulation. just a great example of how transformative the genre can be. 3:01's stuttering rhythm really feels great, and i love the leslie on the organ. the drums are continually interesting. the ending is exciting and great. what a track. a mark of a really great arrangement is being able to hear that arrangement in other styles. we see this with great originals that just keep getting arranged in new ways, because of some key aspect that just jumps into your ears and doesn't let go (earhuggers?). in this one, that's the driving keys/bass riff that comes from that arp in the original. i can easily hear this arrangement being covered with a prog band or an a capella group with minimal change - it doesn't rely on instrumentation to really sell it, but rather just great execution and a catchy presentation. fantastic job. YES

funky start to this one. some interesting percs and bass to start it, and once the keys come in it starts to come together more. the percussion samples were pretty old-school and sounded it - there's some weird behaviors there, like how the metal strike is cut by other samples, the hat sounds not really having an attack but being just sorta staticky, and i wasn't really into it although it was doing some interesting stuff. i felt that overall the drums need some real mastering work - their stuff is all over in terms of volume, and the kick for example is very quiet whereas the hats and sidestick samples were way louder. the track kinda does the noodly thing until about 2:03, where there's a stylistic break. i don't know where this chord progression comes from. i found the sfx that sounds like a rising scream to be pretty grating in here. coming out of this is some more noodles going back and forth between a few chords, and then it goes down to an outro that still manages to end suddenly. so overall i have two complaints. the first is an extension of what i said about the drums earlier - the mastering is irregular at best. the drums need more body and volumization, the keys are easy to hear but don't have any room or verb that i was hearing in the mix, and the track overall feels quieter than it actually is since there's no compression that i could hear on it. it'd be nice to have a more consistent concept applied to the instrumentation and resultant mix. the second is that there's a lot of noodling in this track and not as much explicit declaration of melodic content in here. there's definitely parts where it's hard to hear where the original is, even though what's playing is interesting to listen to. to fix this up, i'd want to hear a more consistent retelling of the melody (adapted for the time signature). this could be in the keys or new instrumentation. right now it's just too exploratory to make up for the issues in the mastering. NO

there's some really fun electronic work in the beginning of this. i liked the more muted version of the classic arpeggio, and the variety of textures and mix of electronic and acoustic instrumentation. the echoed piano at 1:16 is great, and really helps capture the feel of the original piece effectively. the volume level jumps dramatically at 1:51, and those transitional sounds are indeed really loud. this entire section is probably too loud, honestly. the soundscape is super interesting and it's doing lots of interesting things, but the transitional sounds are indeed just too loud compared to everything else. that said, the vox samples are really great, and i loved the prelude cameo around 3:13. the arrangement does a good job closing itself out as well, i thought. for a track with essentially no melody, this is immediately recognizable and very transformative. the overly loud transitions were less a critical issue for me than MW but i wouldn't mind hearing them reduced. either way, this is a great track and really an excellent job capturing an eclectic vision of a great original. nice work. YES

very quiet mastering again. beginning is a variety of orchestral percussion with some very quiet pads and a really super fake shakuhachi-style flute. there's a lot of bells being used for the melodic content where it's appearing. there's some percussion and simple strings added in at 1:15, along with some more aggressively-panned plectral instruments. there's some weird notes in this section that aren't supported if they're intended to be NCTs - 1:29, 1:36-1:38, and a few other places. the drum in the background plays for roughly a minute and a quarter without changing the pattern, and then it's done. there's some more noodling with the ascending and descending pattern from the original, and some bird and wind sfx during an extended fadeout of the bells. this is an interesting one simply because this original track has a pretty distinct melody, and it's only used in pieces in your arrangement. there's a lot of "this sounds a lot like the original" without it being necessarily the same thing, and so i'd consider the arrangement to be pretty solid even if we only get motivic representation instead of an instrument playing out a melody three times before an outro. the samples however really are not super great - there's a lot of obviously fake or synthesized sounds, especially in the pitched bowls, the string pad, and the flute that's used heavily in the opening. beyond that, there's very little reverb applied to everything, so the significant variation in fidelity of samples is more obvious than it should be. i find that even more distracting to be honest. this needs a real effects pass on it, with some clean-up of messy notes and more attention paid to the synths that are more obviously fake. the arrangement is really interesting though and i'd love to hear it realized better. NO

ost sounds great! what a fun set of tracks. intro has some fun electronic and brass stuff going on. the initial presentation of everything at 0:30 has a great feel and is easily recognizable. this continues for a bit, and then there's some really weird stuff going on at 1:16 for a while. several synth runs that just feel like they go in really weird directions, and lots of non chord tones that aren't supported enough to sound like they fit. i can't tell if it's echo from verb or if it's actually just odd notes. this goes through about 1:50. the sections after that continue with the initial vibe of pretty fun stuff, and it's got a fade-out ending that is pretty straightforward. from the mastering side, it sounds pretty solid for the first and last third, and in the middle it becomes obvious that there's two bass instruments that were playing unison and stop during that period. since those two instruments aren't playing the same stuff (in fact they play a bunch of discordant stuff) it sounds really muddy for that middle 35 seconds or so. the middle section i've talked about is enough for me to say "huh, this is weird" and not pass it. it's both muddy and i felt like the way the parts play together there's a lot of messy notes. the rest of it is great though! i really liked the energy and feel outside of that part. NO

there's my last vote (i voted on the original as well). let's see where this is. i agree that the main lead in most of the track is super blah - there's some fun sweeping synths in the background, and then the lead's just this boring hornet that doesn't really do much. i also agree that everything needs to be turned down a lot since the compressor's constantly engaged. 2:07's noodly bit is just a bit too much out of time. the hats throughout are a bit too loud which obviates anything else in that space. there's some really great stuff here! the 303 that's going during the first break around 1:00 sounds great, and there's some variety in the background which is great. i still like the arrangement and the ending sounds good. i think the drums sound a lot better overall (although the hats are essentially just static, probably due to FL's multiband pegging out on them since they're too loud), but the heavy compression used to 'fix' peaking is causing it to be pretty tiresome on the ears. turning down most of the instruments by the same amount, addressing that really blah hornet lead, and ensuring that it's not compression city will probably be enough for a yes from me. NO

couple of classic tracks here. liz sounds fantastic in the intro here. i love the palm-muted guitar as well. there's some aggressively panned bells in the right ear that's a little strong around 1:30, but i think the occasional harmonies are just so well-done. the ritard going into 1:49 is really delicately handled too. 1:50's shift is great. liz's stylistic shift really fits the funk going on behind her. the band's a big loud around her when everyone's going, but overall the sound is pretty great. the whole section from 2:35 through about 2:55 has a bunch of gating on everything as well that sounds great to provide contrast. the transition to Still Alive was pretty sudden overall and not super prepared, but it's not bad, just unexpected and a bit of a tangent shift. i liked the build through this section, and at 5:00 it sounds pretty awesome with the vocals in the left ear, although the track is noticeably heavier in that ear until the end of the track. the extended chord at the end is dope and a great creative way to end the track. overall this is a great performance, and it's a really fun arrangement. i felt the snare and the kick are a bit head-heavy (notably the snare doesn't have much pop and the kick's head is pretty high), which i'm guessing was intentional, but i felt it kinda clogged the middle a bit as a result. my other complaint is that the panning in this track overall is pretty significant. the bari sax is heavy in the left ear throughout, the bells when they're playing are heavy in the right ear, and the high voice is heavy in the left ear at the end. there's significant differences in the RMS between the two ears for most of the track. if i have a suggestion for future tracks, the panning on this track could easily be cut back by half and it'd still do what it's supposed to do. ultimately the arrangement and performance pulls it up for me. like i said earlier, liz's vocals are delightful and well handled, and the band's overall sound and tight performance is great. my mastering complaints aren't enough to keep this off the front page. looking forward to more submissions from such a talented group of musicians. YES edit 11/15: same as MW, i didn't recognize the references but they break the standards. a sad NO for this one from me.

the opening of this track is so intensely quiet that it's beyond dynamic contrast level. the timbres of the instruments are more than enough to keep it feeling quiet, the track desperately needs compression just from that part. the first minute plus is nearly inaudible. this is the typical rebecca approach of interesting orchestral percussion supporting sustained strings and a well-handled melodic line. at 1:00 there's a great handoff in the low strings which i really appreciated. the melodic content gets passed to the oboe, and there's some nice mirroring in the glock and other winds. there's some real bad samples in the trombone and orchestral crash cymbal at 1:43, but i like the transition idea and the percussion again at 1:48. the piece's big moment is around that point, and it kind of just trails off from there. i liked the brass rhythmic parts around 2:00, but the bad samples are back around 2:15 in the trombones, and they're really blatty. the string chorale at 2:22 is nice, though, and resolves in an unexpected fashion. the harpsichord at the end is a little weird since it kinda wanders around, but the piece feels like it should end there so that's good. overall the track isn't super aggressive with the arrangement of the melodic content, but there's a lot of nice stuff going on around it to make it really interesting. i found the samples for the trombone and orchestral crash to be pretty bad - to the point i'd suggest finding something else for those transition points, it's quite noticeable. and the first part of the track is so quiet you almost can't hear it. it maxes at -11db for the first minute...just so quiet. the timbres of those opening strings will translate how quiet it is - it doesn't need to actually be that quiet. there's no one volume setting that's comfortable for the whole track, and it's not even that long. as a whole i believe the arrangement carries this track, but the technical issues are noticeable and i wouldn't be surprised if other judges feel it's on the other side of the line. as it is i'm borderline. YES

some really stellar originals here. also the track clips a bit, a little more than a db, but it's not audible as far as i could see. there's a ton of great stuff here. there's lots of shifts of style so it doesn't feel the same for six minutes, there's lots of use of acoustic and electric guitar alternately, there's some double time stuff, there's lots of interesting backgrounds in the synths behind the (featured) guitars, and there's no really awkward transitions where something just feels weird. there's scads of arranged melodic content, so nothing to worry about there either. the drums are a touch loud (which is a stylistic consideration for the DJ set idea, vs a standalone track, so i get that). in the first few minutes i also felt that the lead guitars were a touch loud as well, and the ending's guitar delays sound a bit weird. but the whole thing sounds so clean that i can't really complain - it's all very intentionally handled and it sounds great. easy yes by me. YES

i didn't vote on the original, so i'm coming in clean. it's so mushy. the opening 25 seconds are some fun chippy stuff over a bucket of guacamole. it seriously sounds like the bass is next door and it's being recorded through the wall. the chips have some really fun performance parts, and there's some really fun ideas with the arrangement chirping up here and there. but the guitars are very lossy (and panned pretty far left), and the bass is just very low-heavy. the drums suffer a lot because you can't hear the kick or head impacts hardly at all, and the high end seems to be pretty cut out. i'm echoing the others here. this needs to be brighter by a lot. some serious notching to shelf in your different non-chip instruments will help a lot too so there's not so much in the same area. NO

really interesting use of effects on various plectral instruments. the shifting perspectives between heavy filter, big reverb, and fading out is really interesting. the voice sound effect is really odd and unexpected, i guess i don't get that connection. the originals come through pretty clearly where they're just arpeggiated notes, but admittedly the breakdown helps a lot - this is pretty out there. the track goes more off the rails the nearer to the end that you get, and the vocal clips don't make more sense as we go along. the huge washes of sound though continue to be so interesting and gorgeous, especially the ending one. there's some time at the end that can be trimmed, i think. this one's weird! weirder than most of your other ones. i love the parts that aren't the vocal samples, and don't like the vocal samples the more into the song we got. that said, it's over the bar - it's transformative, well-mastered, intentionally arranged, and executed in a clearly competent manner. YES

this is a great original track! i've never even heard of this game. lots of playing with time and downbeats, and a big scalar run which i love in chiptune tracks. sfx opening into the traditional slammed keys and kit sound of lofi. the melody's obvious right away, and i like the chopping done to it. the full melody comes in at 0:30, and sounds great. i like the addition of strings to the big ascending scalar run. beat and bass are good too and the vocal sample isn't obnoxious (i don't like vocal samples in downtempo and lofi but i get it's part of the style). there's a break at 1:23, and when the drums come back in they're doing something new, which is nice. at 1:47 we get a new runthrough of the melodic content, and there's some new synths and a countermelody being used, which is great. there's an outro around 2:40. this sounds great, has a lot of melodic content that's mixed up in different ways, and does a good job adapting the track to the genre. nice work. YES

track is very short, about 2:05 in total. opening is marcato strings, flowing into the melody in winds with harmonies in the strings. the background is pretty static. there are some crunchy notes in here (the quintal harmony in the brass (?) at 0:29, the ascending harmony has a wrong note in it right after that as well), and it's fairly simple backgrounds. there's a significant tonal shift and a really fun/funky breakdown of the background at about 0:54. it's much less blocks-of-sound here but i like a lot of the interesting sound design going on here, especially the sliding plectral instrument. this kinda just keeps repeating, though - at 1:27 i expected something to happen, and it kinda just keeps grooving along. there's a bit more at 1:44, but it feels just layered on top and not properly balanced into the rest of the mix. then the track ends with a flourish. from a mastering perspective, the middle has a much lower RMS than the rest of the track and it felt pretty light. also whatever instrument comes in at 1:44 is not really fit into the soundscape, but just put on top of it, so it sounds very crowded suddenly. this is a tale of two halves. the orchestral opening is pretty boring, honestly, and the non-chord tones don't sound intentional. the melody's very static and plodding with no real humanization in there, so it sounds pretty fake. the second part, with the drumkit and stuttered guitar parts, is way more cool and does some fun stuff. it definitely sounds underdeveloped though - even going through the melodic content again at 1:27 and then doing your section from 1:45ish out would have added enough content that i'd call it good. but as is, it's a tech demo that's barely two minutes long. this needs more content, and more attention to the orchestral opening section and the last 20 seconds. NO

high rms and pretty loud mastering overall right off the bat. melody is apparent right from the beginning. there's some playiing with the B theme to mix it up (and some interesting chord choices to make it work). the A theme comes back pretty quickly and we get a little expansion with new instrumentation. there's a switch to triple meter right where it was starting to get a little static at 1:06, and some FF7 battle theme-esque riffs with a distorted synth. there's a bit of a break at about 1:48 and it comes back to duple for a recap that's very similar in instrumentation to the opening A/B section. this is honestly a pretty decent attempt using a not-DAW to make music. the mastering is pretty blown out, there's some funky notes in a few places (you settle on some non-chord tones around 0:26-0:30, and there's a reliance on a b7 between 2:06-2:14 that sounds odd), and the static nature of the synths throughout starts to get repetitive pretty quickly. i don't know what kind of flexibility you have in the app you're using, but if you're able to make it sound not so over-compressed and mix up your synth usage a bit more so it doesn't feel copy/paste from section to section, you'd have a pretty fun little track on your hands i think. right now i think there's too much repetitive texture usage and it's too blown out to consider. NO

i didn't remember the original from the FF9 OST at all. been too long since i've played it apparently. great initial hit with the full band sound. the original is clear right away, and it translates to this style really well. there's some choir and instrumentation adds beyond the standard band sound, and it's all clear and able to be heard without too much silliness, although there's some boom in the low end around 1:32 to the drop. the initial breakdown with orchestral instrumentation and choir is well-handled, and has some neat ideas with the strings. there's another big band section at 2:27, and the presentation of the A section is layered with some additional stuff this time around, which is great. the section from 3:29 onward is hugely meaty and sounds great. the end has some theatrical elements that are a bit more Trans-Siberian Orchestra than i expected, but it's a fun rising tone to end it. this is an easy one. the band sounds great, there's lots of new stuff in here, it's clearly over half for the arrangement...nice work on this one jean. YES

initial groove is fun, feels very acoustic rock. there's not much in terms of compression on the track that i can hear and it's pretty drum-heavy. the melodic content is competently performed but the guitar tone could really use some verb - it feels pretty dry. i liked the lower counterpoint however it sounds just slightly behind the beat. there's a significant and unprepared transition to a new groove at 1:04, and the strummed guitar seems very out of time through parts of that. it goes back to roughly where we started in terms of band sound at 1:30, and there's some more exploration at 1:47 which is nice. there's a third section at about 2:05 that's featuring a classic guitar sound, which is a fun change. the solo in the electric has some sour notes. then we're back to the electro groove to finish it out in a very abrupt ending that features the strummed guitar hanging on a bit longer than everything else. this feels pretty disjointed overall. i think you've got some fun ideas here - the initial acoustirock sound is nice and sounds really early-aughts to me, the electro beat is an interesting counterpoint, and the classical section has a nice sound of its own. i think that you need to spend some time making the parts more cohesive - that is, rather than switching to an idea for 30 seconds, then going to a new style, then going to a new style soon afterwards, focus on really developing an idea, and then making a transition that feels both rational (ie. why am i going here) and smooth (ie. not sudden and dramatic shifts). beyond that, there's some mastering attention that's needed - the drums are too loud and overall the track needs compression to avoid how quiet it feels throughout. this is a fun start! i think it needs some additional workshopping to make it onto OCR. NO

a quick intro leads into the first source track. the band sound is solid and i like the organ work. there's good variety in the groove and it's well-performed. clear transition at 1:25 into the next track, and again it's well-handled. i like the technical approach to the melodic content. the breakdown at 2:33 and subsequent slow build is great. especially around 4:00 i really started to groove with it. the last track at about 4:25 doesn't even really sound like a new track, it's just natural progression. the last minute's octave melodic parts are just great. ending was a tiny bit weak after such aggressive riffs but it's not a problem. i'm really impressed. never lost the melody, never thought the approach was overly cover-ish or too disparate from the original, and the band sounds great. excellent job. easy vote. YES

the opening is pretty rough. the snare sample is super electric and sounds pretty weird being machine-gunned like it is. the bass has a fun tone but it's panned and also has a ton of sub-bass, which makes it sound muddy (and it'll sound worse on a big-sub system). the kick is also panned oddly and is mostly beater sound without any bass, which is an odd sound. the pitch-shifting of the snares is an interesting idea, but not shifting the formants as well makes them sound kinda odd when they get farther from their natural pitch. at 0:41, there's some of the melodic content coming in. the synth work here still features too much bass, but i liked the block chords idea (they're still a little spare and an octave too low IMO). the lead synth is a fun tone and clearly delineates the melodic content, so that's good. there's an obvious loop point, and we go through the build-up to the melody again, which comes in at 2:20. i did like the glide synth for the arp, and that was a neat change, but other than that it felt pretty much the same as the first time through the same material with no break in between. at 2:55, there's a synth-only part that noodles around some bits of melody that builds back up into the rest of the groove. it was a nice break from the original idea, but i started to get tired of the lead at this point. the song noodled some more around the initial riff of the melodic content and then sorta ended. overall this one needs a lot of workshopping from the synth and instrument choice side, i think. the drums sound strange - they feel like they're in an electronic song but you're using them in a classical fashion, and it doesn't do them any favors i don't think. the synths are mostly static throughout - some shifting timbres and new instruments part-way through would help relieve some of the oppressiveness of the repetition. beyond that, i'd think hard about putting a hard EQ on most of your synths so they don't sound so muddy and bleed into sub-bass range. this one isn't there yet. NO

hey bloominglate! you're right in that staff have lives too, and stuff happens or doesn't happen in those lives occasionally ? we're still voting away busily over here! and dave keeps going through his checklist of site updates when he has time.

you...rearranged a track titled "fall & roll"...after falling off your skateboard and busting your arm? melodic content is ready apparent right off the bat. there's some variety in the drum patterns, and the guitars are clear and mastered fine. there's an A/B feel to the first half of the track, and right when it started getting a little repetitive at 2:09, there's a bit of a break and a solo section - which i wasn't expecting based on the writeup! the chant/cheer section at 2:47 is fun, and not annoying like i kind of expected after listening to the original. there's a big recap at 3:30 or so, and that takes the track to the conclusion. overall there's not a ton of arrangement outside of the genre conversion, but what's there is enough to keep it moving and distinct. i thought the mastering was fine with no big issues. this is a pretty competent track from start to finish for a dude who just got his hands back a week before. nice work! YES

significant stylistic variation from the original with this one. the original has minimal content at best so it'll be interesting to see how the artist ties it over. the intro has some long-envelope synths and some interesting buzzy synth design. the chord structure is similar but not the same as the menu music from Amnesia, so it doesn't relate without a few listens. there's a higher-pitched synth that comes in and again plays something similar to the menu theme, but i still wouldn't count it as very obvious that it's from Amnesia. at 1:08 there's a background synth that's clearly playing the few notes from the title theme, and that's the first time i can definitely say that i recognize the theme. at 1:38, the bass synth appears to be playing the B section of the melody as well, but it's a fairly generic set of notes. at 2:12 there's a great change of pace with the addition of the higher string pad, and that's a nice shift. i don't recognize what it's playing, however, and it doesn't seem like it's part of the menu theme from what i can hear. there's a break at 3:19 and then the melodic content comes back in in the bass under some other sfx-like synths. there's a fadeout ending that plays with some more sfx and it's done. this is close enough that it needs a timestamp. so from 1:08 to 1:31 there's the A section in the bass, then the B section from 1:37 to 2:05 in the bass, then the A section from 3:24 to 4:08. the entire opening section is more difficult to say. the added chords aren't in the first chord's key which makes it really confusing to map out and in turn it sounds odd, but there's definitely the Ebm - EM - Ebm - Fm pattern in there, so i'll count that despite it being pretty stretchy to me. so that makes it enough total time if you include the opening. overall this does what i think it's supposed to do, which is represent a track with minimal original melodic material in a melodic-driven style that's totally different. some of the references are understandably minimal or stretches but it sounds good and has solid energy throughout. i think this is over the bar. YES