prophetik music

fantastic original track. a lot to live up to. there's an opening arp with some sfx around it to get it started, and then around 0:30 there's a very minimal drumbeat that comes in. this repeated arpeggio quickly gets annoying - while there's some variation in octaves, it's essentially the same sound for 1:11 with no LFO or change over time in the timbre of the synth. there's a break at 1:12 with some organy sounds, but we're quickly back to the same arp tone quickly. at 1:31 there's melodic content behind the arp, but the arp's still very much in front. there's a more intense section with the bass playing the arp as well at 1:46, and then a fairly sudden end. i think there's the start of a decent track here, but it's not there yet. first of all, if you want the arp to be the focus of your track, you need to mix it up more. 90% of this is one of two static timbres. shifting the arp between synths, adding changes to the tone via LFO'd filters or effects, or even just picking a tone that isn't so grating and in-your-face with no verb presence would help a lot. i will note that the arp is very much a background part of the original track, and you've got it as the primary thing that's in your face throughout - this really should be volumized down a lot, to let the actual melodic content shine out more. lastly, along those lines, the melodic content is really quite minimal in your version - you start it in the organ at 1:11, and the track plays this melodic content for less than a minute before going back to the arp exclusively. the choice to highlight the repetitive arp rather than the melody is clearly intentional but i'd say it's not to the benefit of your arrangement. this is a start but it's not there yet. NO

some interesting techniques described here. i hear the 80s dance concept right away. the intro's got some fun synth work where time's just a suggestion, and while that's not my favorite i get what the remixer was going for. the heavily explained bass arp comes in at 0:42 and has some really fun FM-y vibes on it. the melodic content is pretty clear, and the tom fill at 1:22 is a great mixup. the original is really interesting because the melody isn't in the most prominent instrument (the arp), it's in the sustained lower chords. that trend is repeated here, and the transition to 4/4 is solidly done overall. there's a guitar-ish synth at 1:50 that sounds like the b section of the original's melody - i can't say i liked this synth sound that much, this felt really bland compared to the heavy sound design applied to most of the other synths in the track. this is followed by a nice bell tone during a break, with a big recap at 2:35 that sounds really fat. there's a big blow at 3:00 and the aforementioned 'real guitar' chugging towards a very relaxed ending. the bass seems to end on a non-chord tone, but that might just be because so much of it is in the sub at that point and it's hard to hear the pitch. this is pretty fun. it's a much more straightforward arrangement than i expected but it's very listenable. i really enjoyed the design and attention paid to most of the synths. the original track is in this pretty clearly, even if the 'melody' of that track isn't always clear. nice work. YES

classic tune here. also, you went with polygonjohn instead of polyjohn? missed opportunity filtered drums and some sfx start this track off, along a very bass-heavy bass and some quiet bells. the melody comes in at 0:35 with some nicely-sequenced gliding synth. this does a nice job sitting back on the beat which fits the background well. there's a silence break at 1:22, and a fade-out for the last 25 seconds of the song featuring a bit of noodling on the A section of the melody. aaaaaaaand...that's it. the melodic content takes up less than a minute by itself. so this isn't going to pass since there's nowhere near enough development here to call it. things that i liked included the general vibe of the drumloop (more creativity and fill use there would help a lot as the track's duration progresses past where it is now), the automation on the melody (i'm a sucker for glides), and the approach overall of a more relaxed version of the original track. i did not care for how bass-heavy this is. there's a lot of overlap between the bass synth and the chorded bell tones - those need to be squared off with an EQ so there's not so much mud in the low end. adding a bit more highs overall to both instruments would actually help i think - it's very low/low-mid focused, and while that can help it feel relaxed it also makes it harder to tell what's what. i also don't understand not including the B section of the melody on a track that is so short. even just a single run-through of that bit would have helped lengthen the track by 20 or 30 seconds, which is approaching what i'd consider the minimum. on the topic of arrangement, this definitely feels like a demo. mixing it up in instrumentation, chords, or style with a second run-through of the (entire) melody would add a lot to the track and help wrap it up into less of a demo and more of a finished duration. overall this is too short to really consider. there's some really nice ideas but it needs more content. NO

track is at least -4db from 0 if not more. the original is essentially Zanarkand with some slightly altered chords and some different instrumentation. i thought the name was 'movement in green', the name was confusing to me until i saw that it just had two ways to translate the name. there's some sustained strings in the opening, and then a very open and light transcription of the Zanarkand melody. more comes in at 0:43, but the background until 1:04 is primarily sustains with (IMO non-idiomatic) pizz for the melodic content. at 1:04 we get a more traditional presentation of the melody, and the balance and orchestration is more reactive and vibrant. the bass pizz is still not very realistic in its usage, but there's some nice instrumentation choices aside from that. the glock (or tuned glass? can't really tell) is quite piercing in this context however and i found it to be offputting in some places. the paralleled lines between glock and harp though were clever and nicely framed. at 2:32 the melody shifts to more pizz in the cellos and bass, and it sounds odd since it's so artificially prominent due to volumization. there's a nice recap of the later part of the original melody at 3:05ish, and then an outro. overall i thought the arrangement itself was great. there's tons of variety in how the melodic content is approached, and while i really didn't like the loud pizz of the cello and bass being used to carry the melody, that was minor compared to the overall scoring. zanarkand's melody is just so rich and the track really allowed that to shine through. mastering sounded fine as well aside from it being very quiet - there's some specific instruments that stick out and could use a bit of trimming, like the glock, but that's it. overall this is really solid. the arrangement is transformative, there's a lot of creativity in the approach, and the realization is capable. nice work. YES

some interesting instrumentation to start this one off, with some equally interesting sound design choices. there's a fun groove though once everything comes in at 0:14. i like the synth bass's attention to articulation and the really nice automation on the guitar. the percussion is fun as well although i'd like to hear more consistent fills around transition points. speaking of that, the overall track just keeps evolving which is really neat. there's some downtempo break sections, there's some fun string pizz stuff and a flexible flute, and some fun harmon-muted trumpet with some backing organ that's real understated and nice. there's another not-transition at 2:54 to a pretty robotic section driven by what's supposed to be like an upright bass but just comes across as feeling too automated (i have the same gripe for the earlier part that featured this, but it wasn't as obvious there due to more going on, but it's sounding really similar outside of the percussion), and then a pretty nice ritard into a very chill ending. from an arrangement perspective. the opening section is clearly derived from the chords in the intro of the original, and the initial slide guitar around 0:35 is definitely a dressed-up version of the original's melody for the first section. that initial ascending and descending riff shows up in several other instruments throughout as well. overall there's some filler and groove sections but i think that there's enough here to call it enough source. i will say that i didn't like the walking bass sections at all, and thought not only did they sound extremely similar in the bass and strings but also the bass just sounded bad. there's so much rhythmic variation and articulation used throughout the rest of the track that a bunch of eighth notes strung together (in non-idiomatic ways, i feel) with no flips or occasional rhythmic variation sounds weird. overall though this one hits enough points to pass. i like the percussion throughout, i like the variety in lead instruments, and i like the attention to detail most of the time. this has a great vibe. YES

starts off real peaceful with some pretty piano and strings. from there the flute and strings pick up the main melodic section over some rhythmic strings. this is fairly straightforward writing but it's competent and sounds nice. there's a break for the piano at about 1:04, and this is really well played/sequenced again. we get back into the full group at 1:47, and the arrangement is again in the flute and then strings. this is very similar to the earlier section from 0:25-1:04, nearly copy/paste territory. there's a fun brass chorale at 2:32, and some string ensemble work to follow that up. the solo violin isn't great quality but it's passable. a light flourish in the bells and we're done. this feels very pokemon, which is pretty nice. the copy/paste section though is pretty egregious. the intro, piano solo section, and ensemble section at the end is really nice, however, and throughout the ensemble writing is pretty solid. this could probably go either way for me, but some more creativity in that second copy/paste section and this is an easy pass in my book. NO

hmm, the second Lone Trooper remix on the panel in the last month for me, neat. as expected, a ton of weird stuff from MH. this takes some time to get cooking, but it's familiar once it gets going. the link from 0:38 to about 1:09 is tenuous, but from then on it's more obvious. one thing i appreciate about michael's music is that it regularly uses lots of space to allow things to develop naturally, and that happens here quite a bit. it isn't until after 2:00 that we really get an obvious correlative melodic line, but it doesn't feel too late at that point. the section at 3:20 is really great. it's got such an odd vibe with the combination of the heavily effected guitarish synth next to the pulsing of the drums. it fading to just the pulsing synths (reminiscent to the alert sounds at the beginning of the original) is really neat too. looking at this from a content perspective is tougher than normal because there's a ton of sfx work here that i'd argue essentially shouldn't count towards the main body of the work. i'd want to toss the first 35ish seconds and the last minute or so. from there, the connection at 0:38 is recognizable but so heavily distorted it's hard to hear. from there it's clearer in the more melodic (i use that word tenuously at best) sections. i think ultimately there's enough here to count, but i recognize that other judges may timestamp this differently. this is a tough one to timestamp because of how much of the original is just unpitched stuff or sfx, too. overall this is a really interesting work. the care taken with some of the more distorted sections is clear, and there's some really unique approaches taken here that i think really dovetail well with the game. this is a pass in my book. YES

ooh, love the rhodes right at the beginning. there's a nice clear soundscape at the beginning. snare's a touch loud but it isn't overpowering. melody comes in at 0:27 and it's got a lot of personalization. the synth choice is a bit squishy and hard to hear with so many notes. there's a genre switch at 0:56 as a b-section with a more traditional jazz groove in keeping with the original, and then it goes back to the funkier layout. next section features some original solo content, but it does feel pretty inspired by the original melody. this goes back to the melody with a lighter background for a bit before going back to where it was. around here i noticed that the drums have mostly sat on the same groove for the entire song, but the personalization in the fills and the ride groove they shift to during the jazzier sections helped out. there's some more leaning on the buzzy synth's riff and then it closes up. this is a nicely-handled track in my opinion. there's some nice personalization, the solo's great, the instrumentation compliments it well, and it's well-mastered. this one's easy for me. YES

oh my gosh this is hilarious! this is immediately recognizable as haunted chase, at least to me, and the style is on point. the main representation is the noodle in the clarinet, the ascending chromatic pattern between the organ and clarinet, and the upward-rising flourishes in the clarinet. there's not much more in haunted castle honestly so this kind of motivic development is exactly how you'd have to arrange something like this. creepy castle starts at 0:55 i think, with some alternate rhythmic ideas thrown in. the artist alternates between them from there on out, and has a fairly standard ending. from an execution standpoint, the instruments sound about what i'd expect. they're not particularly good but especially the clarinet is actually pretty well handled (although it doesn't sound real, that's just a limitation of most clarinet sample sets). the low brass samples aren't great (is it a sousaphone or trombone? i honestly can't tell), but again it's not the worst. the drums are probably too loud, but polka drums are extremely simple - remember that sometimes they're played as part of a one-man suit, so the complexity is minimal at best. what is represented here is on the lower end of the complexity scale for the style but it's not bad at all, although a simple fill here or there wouldn't have been bad. i think this is great. i can see it failing on instrument quality guidelines but honestly this does a great job handling one theme and bits of another in two minutes in a creative, transformative way without making me hate it. the puppet video is hilarious too. YES

some fun originals here. intro has some fun sound design and builds really nice. the continuance of that build through 0:45s up to 1:05 is also great. there's some more building out of the main beat that calls back a bit to the intro, and then the melody comes in at 1:27. the bass is really active, the background is full and rich, and the lead is clearly audible throughout. this is really well-done. i wouldn't have minded some more personalization of the lead synth through this section, but for an initial presentation it's fine. there's a break at about 2:32, and the bass comes in and adds some fun punch to this section. there's a b section that starts at 2:53 and then has the melody come in delayed and mess around a bit which is nice. i would have loved to hear a new lead here to mix it up, but the backgrounds have continued to have some variation so it's not egregious. the main melody comes in again at 3:39 and it feels pretty similar to the first time it came in for the entire way through the melodic presentation. there's a recap of the chorus of the original and that takes us through the end of the track. the ending is simple but is clear and effective. from a mastering perspective this is mastered really loud (as expected in the style) but isn't difficult to listen to or anything. the instruments are consistently clear and nothing is overpowering. mastering is really solid, a high point for the track overall. i wasn't a huge fan of the last third of the track being at least partially copy/pasted, but overall this is well over the bar and sounds great. nice work =D YES

this starts out as mostly a sonic upgrade, with the intro being pretty similar to the original. there's some fun riffs and ensemble work in there. i didn't like the lead synth as much as i felt it's too close to a synth guitar in a bad way - something that was a little more cutting would have come across a bit clearer i think. there's a cutout at 1:13 that's got some more fun ensemble work, and eventually moves to a solo section that has some good ideas. there's not much space in there but that's not specifically a complaint as much as an observation. we get back to a recap of the second part of the A section, and it feels copied from earlier for a bit. at 2:29 there's some interesting offbeat guitar work, but the drums and bass still sound similar to the opening section. some half-time drums mix it up a bit (although there's a few snare hits that sound off-time), a bit of a bass feature, and some more ensemble work bring it back to a recap to finish it out. i don't care for the ending - unresolved chords need a reason to be unresolved or else they're trite, so it just sorta ends. overall i definitely noticed that the drums have a few nice fills and patterns but overall felt pretty much the same throughout. i don't know if it's an exact copypasta but it didn't feel like there was much variability there from bar to bar. from a production standpoint it sounds a little condensed from an EQ standpoint. the instruments are all audible but it doesn't sound like there's much in the really high or low registers. it's nice though that everything's pretty clear from start to finish, and there's never a point where it's hard to hear. another note - this kind of style i'd expect a bit more compression overall. it's got a lot of dynamic variability, and that's to the detriment of the rhythm guitars at least i think. more compression on them and a noise gate to cut the in-between fuzz will help make their articulations a lot clearer and will add more punch to what they're playing. there is very little space in this song in any instrument, and that leads to a track that has a bit of a same-y feel throughout. overall there's some really fun ideas here i think. some of the melodic expansion is neat, the band overall sounds pretty good when they're doing less rhythmic stuff, and there's a pretty nice overall shape to the track. the solo was solid as well. i think this can use a bit of love on the guitar parts to compress and gate them a bit like i mentioned, the track as a whole can use some heavier compression so it's not so dynamically variable, and the drums could use some love so they don't sound so robo. i'm pretty split on this. i want to hear what other judges think before i vote fo sho. it's competent overall but it feels pretty robotic and flat. ??? edit 12/17: going to go with my fellow judges here. i think the mastering is flat, the drums are boring, and the ending isn't there. not anything huge by itself but adds up to a NO.

tiberian sun has some really interesting tracks. you know immediately what age of pc gaming this came from as soon as you hear it, it's so late 90s. track starts off with some sfx and pads. the chord progression is from the original and the wide pads are similar to some of what's going on in the original but other than it's not a super-clear correlation. there's a tonal shift at 1:37 that brings in the familiar bass riff that's through most of the first part of the original track. the vocal pads are reminiscent of some of the instrumentation there too so that's nice. 2:12 echoes some of the original at 2:21 or so, and noodles around the updated chord progression. 3:31 picks up significantly, mirroring 3:24ish in the original. there's a lot of interesting ideas here, like adding random beats, and not as much focus on the melodic content from the original (although it's there). the synth solo is pretty fun and fits the style really well. there's a quieter section that serves to settle things down, but then it just ends rather than finishing up cleanly which is kind of bogus. overall the arrangement is pretty far-reaching, but i think that there's enough here to pass muster for content volume. the synth work and instrument choices echo the original in a lot of ways and i liked that. on the mastering side, there's not much bass and most of the pad/mid-voice synths seem pretty heavily notched into their EQ ranges so it feels a little dense EQ-wise, but that's not a deal-breaker. this is a neat arrangement that does a lot with a track that has like five notes in it. nice work. YES

yeah, the lack of room verb or body on the piano is really obvious right off the bat. there's some wrong notes in it too that can't be attributed to the style - like the second note at 0:34. this kind of burlesque playing loves purposefully incorrect notes but they've gotta be leaned into. clashing notes in the background are just wrong, not quirky. i'm at 1:20 and i still can't shake that this is the background and half the instruments are missing. i like the idea of an approach that's less a large ensemble and more a small group, but it feels very empty throughout. the ending is odd. it sounds like the instruments start to fade out, but there's a clearly defined ending that actually wraps it pretty good. i don't know if the dynamic shifts are intentional. there's some interesting ideas that can come from small-ensemble work like this, but this still feels very disjointed and like it's missing too much to string it together. a key component of small ensemble writing is that all parts need to be equal contributors, or at least roughly equal, and that doesn't feel like the case here. as a result it sounds like piano and random sfx instead. the keys sound odd, but the arrangement needs more to tie it together beyond the (admittedly pretty good outside of the unsupported wrong notes) piano writing. NO

what an interesting original. i haven't heard of this one. there's some really great stuff going on here. the original's very atmospheric, and the way that you approached this aspect and made it your own is really fun. there's some fun fm-ish bells in here, lots of swelling synths, some heavily filtered percussion in the intro, and then it fleshes out into a really fun half-synthwave feel. the concatenation of a half-time beat and 16th notes in the synths is really interesting. the piano that comes in at 2:17 is also great, it's very metallic and feels like it fits this future-retro spacey feel really well. the track develops really slowly but it doesn't feel like it's dragging. there's a break at 3:12, and the synth work here continues to be pretty nuanced and interesting. this feeds up into a heavily sfx'd version of the texture of the first section. the electro synth-guitar does a nice job singing out over the top of all of the chaos under it. the ending is sudden but not problematic. this sounds great and brings to light a great original. excellent work. YES

some fun sfx in the opening. i loved the voiceover at the beginning, actually, although it's a bit bright. the jump into 0:52 was great, and the beat is pretty fun. i agree that it's a bit lossy but it doesn't sound terrible. there's a bit of a breakdown at 1:30 that keeps the driving beat but plays with stereo, and that's a little weird but it's still clearly tied to the original's chord progression. i really liked the arpeggiated synth at 1:58 specifically, and the continued variety of percussion and synths helped keep such a fast, straightforward progression from getting to weird. by about 2:27, i started getting a bit tired of the voiceover, but that's more personal preference than it being a bad implementation. the transition into 2:52 wasn't expected - i like the needly synth there! - but the key change was really surprising. i liked the new melody handling though and the synth used was great. the transition back to the original key was bad simply because it's not set up at all. even a bit of transition in the keys or some drum stuff would have been enough. then it just sort of ends. this is great for 95% of the track, and the ending is a real let-down. overall though i love the synth choices, i like the sound of it, and there's some fun ideas that you explore. i think this is over the bar. YES

this really is heavily limited. it's notable right off the bat and makes my ears tired very quickly. the intro is interesting, and i like the groove. the melody intro is also interesting, and it's clear what track this is from right away. i liked the use of stereo in this section especially. there was little personalization but playing with the stereo effects were neat. the break at 1:36 was needed and well-timed. the second melody coming in at 1:45 was a lot more rigid and i felt this wasn't as well handled. there's not as much creativity in the background here and the melody is just kinda played through. 2:36 brought in some stuttered kicks to fit into the melody, and i didn't like this either. for a track that was very predicated on groove, it felt very offputting. there's a recap of the first melody and then an outro. the mastering here really was difficult. it's extremely bass-heavy and the mastering feels like it was just a matter of applying a limiter and leaving it at that. the melody is easily audible throughout, so it's volumized at least passably well, but i felt like the bass was straight-up oppressive. on a bass-heavy system like a car this will sound like mud for nearly the entire track. i like the feel a lot, but given how conservative the arrangement was (the melody lines could have been dropped into the sequencer from a midi and i wouldn't know the difference) and how messy the lower EQ is, i think this needs another pass. NO

wow, great original. agreed that the opening drone needs more depth. it's actually a lot louder than the harp which inspired the start. the bawu though is really carefully handled in a very idiomatic manner - nice work. i'd love to hear more movement in that synth drone under it. the guitars sound great. agree with emu that the drums need some verve, although i didn't mind the high EQ content in this as much as you did. i'll note that the bass especially on higher notes get some machine-gun effect - you may need to play with the velocities to get some flex there. i thought the bawu sounded fine at 1:10, but found the cello at 1.18 to be difficult to hear. i'd suggest either starting that section in a higher octave (sacrificing a little drama from a rising line to instead allow it to be clearly heard) or lightening the backing parts for the first part of the cello's line. when the guitar takes over the lead, it sounds fantastic. the break at 1:55 is great. i found the squelchy synth to be a bit too bright to start - maybe start with the filter a little tighter and make it a more gradual change? the zipper synth coming at 2:07 is an interesting stylistic choice. i like the concept - echoing another ethnic instrument - but it doesn't seem to really go anywhere (it kinda meanders) and it is fairly quiet. this is exacerbated by an aggressive background. this is an opportunity to break up the bass and drum groove and go with something different for a bit before having your lead come back in at 2:36. along those lines, the sequencing on the guitar becomes evident the last time through after it sounds essentially the exact same as the last few times it's played. since this is the penultimate phrase of the piece, go all out! making it be something more unique to send off your listeners will keep them coming back. even just a fast riff or a higher ending pitch will make a big difference. along those lines, allowing your synths to sustain a touch past the end of the last bar (or at least finishing their riff on beat 1 of the last bar, rather than an offbeat) will help make sure your ending feel like an ending, and your fadeout sound like it's on pitch...there's a bit of detuning effect right now that's a bit offputting. overall? it's a little too apparent that this is a bedroom producer track (). the drums and bass are obviously loops, the lead guitar lick is repeated in the same form too much, and the opening synths need some verve. i would suggest putting some woodshedding in on the drum track especially to mix it up here and there (grace notes and more use of varied cymbals can make a pretty good groove into an amazing track), put some movement on the early synth pad, dress up some of your other repeated patterns, and clean up the ending a bit, and you're in a better place. a bit of work on the drum EQs and you'll be even better. you have some excellent stuff here - the bawu and initial guitar programming are delightful. this definitely will get a yes from me with just a bit more dress-up. to be honest this is really close for me and i wouldn't be sad to see it get posted. there's just so much that can be gained from a few simple updates. NO

i'm going to preface this by saying that i really am not into lofi despite liking downtempo and other styles. i find the reduced freq range to be tiresome. that said, i think this is a fairly good adaptation of the original into this style. the beat sounds consistent with the genre, and the bass is interesting and adds some fun to the track. that said, i'd consider this to be more of a cover than an arrangement. there's essentially no adaptation of the melody or chords throughout at all, no personalization. the bass groove is fun and the few synths used are thematic and fit, but i'm landing on the not-enough-arrangement side of the line by just a little. maybe if it was longer and could explore the ideas laid out here more i'd be ok with it, but the melodic content occupies less than a minute and a half of the track. it's just too short to really explore anything. if it was a minute longer (with a minute's worth of exploration and development) i'd be cool with it, i think, since it sounds good. it's just too close to being a straight cover in a new style otherwise. NO

kick has a lot of reverb. i'm guessing that'll cause issues later in the track. opening synths are interesting but quiet. already by 0:28 there's a lot of heaviness in the lower mids because of how oofy the bass is and the amount of sustain on the kick. the melody coming in at 0:55 is nice, though, and i like the handoff between the two synths to make that initial arpeggiated line. the melodic content is definitely pretty repetitive, and that's just the nature of the original here. that said, there's a lot you can do to expand it out, with one really obvious idea being updated chords. a fun thing is that when the melodic content is highly repetitive, you can essentially put whatever chords you want under it and it'll still sound right (within reason). i'd recommend looking into some easy progressions like I-vi-IV-V or I-bVI-bVII-IV to get some movement out of the second half of the track. the break at 1:49 was needed. i think you had a chance to branch out more in your sound design here, also, to make it even more separated from the main section. the ending drop to just synths is a nice idea to help wrap it up. needs some extra blank space at the end to allow your ending hit to fade naturally, it's clipped now. overall the bigger issue here wasn't the repetitiveness, as emu said (although it's definitely repetitive and should get some more body to the arrangement itself), it's the mastering. it's very boomy because of the bass and kick both having long sustains that aren't trimmed, and because both clearly have a ton of spare freqs flying around. an EQ pass and trimming down the envelope for both the bass and kick will help immensely, and open up a lot of room for some of your more interesting mid parts to speak easier. NO

some fun fm-style synths to start out the track. the melody is recognizable right away, and the drums are nice and tight early on. the first presentation of the melody is a bit weird, because there's this huge sub-bass, the drums, a melody, and a moving countermelody, but no real obvious pad or anything to help hold it together. it feels a bit empty as a result. also at this point it becomes obvious that there's only really one drum loop being used and then a different one for fills, and that's it. there's a break that's needed and we get back into it at 1:40 or so. there's some more complexity in the mids here which helps. 1:56 is the melodic content again, and again this is very 'hollow'-feeling, with no supporting pads in the mids and the melody several octaves above most of the other synths. there's another break at 2:54 for a while, and there's a bit more exploration here before it comes back up for a final bit at 3:15 that sounds more like a transition to a new song in a set more than anything else, and then a fadeout. this ending is pretty not-great for a standalone track. from a mastering side, the cymbals and highs especially in the drumset are very bright compared to the rest of it. the bass is also very present, but it's worth noting most of the beef is in what i'd call sub-bass frequency so it might not speak on everyone's headphones or speakers. overall i think this one needs a bit of workshopping. i liked what it was doing - there's some fun countermelodies going on, i liked the feel of the drum groove initially, and the synth choice is fun. there's a bunch of simple-to-fix missteps, though, like not scooping the mastering so hard, or filling out the middle of the frequency range a bit with some pads, updating the drums so they're not the same loop for 3.5 minutes, and adding some body to the lead synth so it's not quite so thin up high where it is (or dropping it an octave). this has some fun ideas but it's not there yet. NO

i found the stilted samples to be much more irritating, notably in passages with thinner instrumentation or solo leads. however, the arrangement was very well handled from an instrumentation standpoint. there's a lot of passing the melody around, there's a variety of orchestral timbres explored, and as expected from Rebecca the OST is represented strongly. i do think there was more room to do some more varied textures - most of the middle section is just string sustains under some more interesting wind writing - but you mixed it up a bit more near the end with some pizz and then some much lighter instrumentation to finish it out. this is closer than i would have expected mainly due to the handling of some of the not-great sample choices, but overall this is over the bar. YES

probably the FE game i'm least familiar with (i haven't played Three Houses yet either but i know a bit abouit it). beautiful source albeit simple. opening is very quiet and simple, and the first presentation of the melody is way huge - too huge of a difference based on timbre, i'd say. there's not actually much going on in the first melodic presentation - you've got drums, a pad, an arp, a sustained bass, and the melody - and none of them really have the sound of something that's super fat or wide like you'd hear in a drop in a synthwave track for example. the difference in volume there is too much. it also sounds really dense for some reason - like several instruments have their highs filtered out. the pad that comes in at 1:25 sounds oddly muted as well, and there's some crushing going on. sounds like a very harsh limiter. the section at 1:50 starts to explore some other sfx which are interesting, and that goes into a significant break section featuring some more fire/vinyl sfx and a lot of delay/verb on the instruments. this lightens up and eventually transitions back to another big section featuring End of Despair, and then back to some work on the original. overall, from an arrangement perspective, i think that there's some good stuff that you're doing with how you've adapted the melody, and the interplay between some of the drums and the main background. i think the choice of synths you've used, and the comically large difference between the loud and soft parts, is in the negative however. your lead was fun and had some nice effecting, but the bass synth sounds very canned and missing any highs, and the pads and other synths in the louder sections also sound similarly over-filtered. for example, based on your description, you wanted your big parts to be this big wash of audio awesome. ultimately though it sounds very full of holes - you've got this bass instrument with no treble down low, a melody up way high, the (honestly really loud) drums, and then it's hard to hear any of the rest of the background instruments or sustained pad work. even later when you use a sustained instrument for the melodic content (at 3:11) it doesn't feel big, it just feels loud. i think the mastering ultimately is what kills this. without such a huge polarization of dynamics, my complaints about where the synths sit aren't as obvious. this needs some attention - turn your louder stuff down and don't rely on the limiter so much, and bring your quieter stuff up and allow the dramatically different timbres to define loud/soft more than such significant volume distributions. NO

oh, that's a gorgeous texture up front. the washes of sound are really nice, and i found the vocal 'pad' to be really nice too. there's some very fun percussion being used in here as well. i agree that the panflute isn't a great sample, but it's not egregious. the song felt like it was done at 1:40, so i was surprised to see that this was only the halfway point. it picked back up though and had more interesting exploration of the arpeggio. there's some odd notes in here (2:05, 2:07, and a few others), and the winds aren't particularly realistic in their orchestration. the outcome is interesting to listen to though, and i liked the later application of some plectral instruments to complement the ongoing harp work. the song hangs on longer than expected - there's another natural fadeout/ending and some fun double-time stuff - but overall the arrangement is really interesting and does a good job expanding on a very minimal source. nice work. YES

32-bit float?! they called him a madman... the intro is really nice. the filter on it is enough to catch it but not enough to stomp out the character. the bass swell is also well-handled and comes from absolutely nothing. the presentation of everything at 0:39 is really great - i particularly like your unfiltered bass synth. gario's right that there's a backing pitch that's not fitting everything else (seems like a minor sixth right at 0:54). the melody when it comes in is quite loud as well, at least when it's higher in the register. once it drops lower it's more balanced. the drum entrance is great, the soundscape is just very idiomatic. 2:56-3:06 (arguably 3:12) feel like 1:44-1:53ish of the original, and while they don't follow the chord structure they do follow the shape of the line (in arguably a more listenable fashion). the earlier section is also similar in its exploration of a line's shape vs. its specific melodic content. i feel this is relevant because the original's melody noodles so much that it's almost unsingable - it just keeps wandering, and the artist here did a nice job making something that is more cohesive without losing the songlike feel that made the original interesting. this is also separate from how the artist continues to use the adapted arpeggio from the original throughout the entire track as another tool to relate back to the original. the addition of even just the initial descending parts of the three passages that gario calls out make it to 50%, so i'm good there. looking at it as a whole, there's a clear and consistent relation to the original, and the soundscape like i said is great. even with that one note at 0:54 (which isn't really wrong as much as it is a dissonance that wasn't set up) this is definitely good enough to post. YES

this soundtrack is so much fun. props for picking a more complex track for the remix. big hit to start. the tonal shift at 0:15 is just instantly recognizable despite the new instrumentation. the guitars at 0:52 are really aggressive and i love the pitch mod on them. the build towards 1:27 is really solid, and 1:27 is also great. i like the approach of having multiple leads on the melody to simulate the original synth that played the melodic line there. 2:05 drops off in tempo and volume, and there's some fun sfx and a heavily-effected bass noodling. very atmospheric throughout here. the wooblesynth you've got doing the higher pitched parts at 3:00 is fun but it cuts itself so it sounds a little weird considering it has a longer attack. either way the rest of the background here is excellent, lots going on but still identifiable. the drop at 3:38 is very intense - there's a lot of energy there without losing the build you just did. 3:55 brings that back to the forefront. i like the focus switching between guitar and synth in this section. this took a little longer to build up to supermax than i expected, with a little more repetition than i expected, but it kept getting bigger and eventually maxed out for a big wall of sound ending. i like the ending and the repetition used there. normally i'm not for abrupt endings but this was in keeping in the rest of the track's style. excellent track. very impressive work. YES