prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

i didn't vote on the original in time, but was batsignaled in a vote so i offered a bunch of commentary around the harmonic content and the approach. 6dba headroom, in a negative way. this track needs volumetric expansion, or a very light limiter and compression to balance the dba without affecting the timbre of the instrumentation. there still does not appear to be any true mastering on the track, and a lack of polish/sparkle does not do this track benefits. i remembered this as soon as i heard that bass synth. there's some interesting electrical/glitchy fx on the track overall, and i like those parts. there's what i believe is added block chords at 2:15, which adds a ton of body to the piece but also stands out as feel more organic vs. the very synthetic feel of the bass and added fx/pads. there's some timing elements here too that don't feel right, like at 2:52, 3:04, and elsewhere. this is an interesting one. like kris, i don't feel this has enough going on to really comprise a remix. but, similarly, i think Death on the Snowfield is an excellent remix, and that track's highlight is also its simplicity. i believe there's two differences here. the first is that the instrumentation in DotS (acoustic guitar, filtered piano, some synths) fits together much more comfortably than the burble bass synth and the lead piano here, since they're obviously different timbres where as the bass synth and piano here feel very similar and so can be hard to tell apart. the second is that DotS does a better job creating an overall feel and progressing through that in a traditional song 'shape' - starts small, builds, comes back down - than this one does. i think this is a fundamental issue that may require significant rewrite to get around. the natural progression of this remix does not build energy (or quiet resolve) throughout, but instead is fairly flat until 2:15, and then loses that and goes back to the flat by 2:35. the lack of overall shaping hurts the track. you could resolve this through layering new synths or instruments progressively/additively throughout, and then tailing off, or you could handle this via what the piano's doing and not add new material. i think if you do the latter, you have to do some very nuanced filtering to ensure it doesn't leave the beautifully dirty vibe you've got initially in the instrument. i found it really hard to delineate a single thing as to why this isn't 'enough'. i don't feel that the arrangement is significant enough to carry it past the fundamental composition issue i have with the song's bones. so unfortunately i'm still on the NO side of the fence. a song this simple requires perfect execution to be great. for every Galaxy Map from Mass Effect, you've got a hundred less memorable phases from Steve Reich. identifying what makes a minimalistic track truly memorable and focusing on those elements can only help you here. NO

love the concept. and the original is nuts, i'd never have guessed this was from a mario game. the inspiration for the track is immediately recognizable - the beautiful strings fading in, the wall of latin text, the groove with guitar and synths underpinning it all remind me immediately of ES Posthumus. the groove on the drums is especially great. the choir moves a touch slow essentially the entire piece, which i'm not a huge fan of, but the adaptation is great and the execution is surprisingly effective. there's a big break at 2:22, with some ping-ponged autotuned singing - another ESP inspiration that admittedly didn't do it for me. around 3:00 we get another repetition of the 'chorus' section of the piece. i know ESP tends to do a lot of repetitive tracks with tons of copy/paste, but i'd have liked something to mix this up a bit. maybe different orchestration or instrumentation to keep this part unique. another break at 3:45 and a slick guitar solo. love the extra distortion on the verb, it sounds really great. the last 30 seconds is a good outro that serves to wrap the track nicely. i agree with the previous judges that it's not mastered as crisp as i'd like. it still sounds solid though so i'm definitely on board with a positive vote here. YES

never heard this original, it's a neat idea. there's a lot of fun pieces to this one. the bass has a nice squelchiness to it that shows up sometimes, and it's playing fun stuff. the honky horn synths are a really neat tone, and i like what they're playing. i usually hate sfx in remixes, and the uses of these are both rhythmically appropriate and add rather than detract from the remix. the drums are fast-paced and fun initially, too. ultimately, though, this is as MW says - it's a ton of copy/paste, and a lot of it feels on auto-pilot. beyond that, i thought that nothing really felt like it was in the same place. the bass, percussion, drums, lead synth, sfx, and honky horn synth all feel like they're in totally different places in the mix. they're not balanced and verbed and EQ'd such that they feel cohesive. there is a really neat tech demo here. i think it'd be really positive to spend some time making a more cohesive whole, with drums that are less looped and have more fills and blurbs to help them feel less repetitive, and less copy/paste overall. NO

hey, this is really fun! the original's vibe translated really easily to this arrangement. ultimately most of the arrangement felt like the original to the point i needed to A/B it, and i think that the first minute is mostly in line with the original, with a solo break and some goofiness during the second minute until a break at 2:02. there's an extra-frantic ending and that's that. ultimately, the mastering on this track is really poor. it's hard to hear anything, really, and there's no EQ i can hear on the drums at all where they're desperately needed. it's very dense as shown by the freq plot - tons of sub-40hz content, tons of stuff between 100-200hz, and essentially nothinig past 2khz, which is why it sounds so dull. a quick mastering pass could work wonders with this! right now i don't think it passes our mastering bar, but it's a fun track that absolutely would have a home here once it's gone through that. NO

i don't mind the intro. reminds me of some of the ways that prog bands mess with time in intros. this is a hip arrangement! i really dig the additive intro, and how the melody is getting passed around a lot. there's some small but meaningful updates to the melodic line - the little flips into notes and triplets added really make a huge difference. i also appreciate how much space there is in the implementation - lots of chopped synths, the drums are crisp. the layering of the Athletic theme with the immediately-recognizable underworld theme is great. the ending is kind of nonexistent - this is a loop, right? - but it doesn't take away from a good overall package. it's short but fun. wish it was longer! i just wanted to keep listening. easy vote ? YES

very short track. neat intro, though, i like the synth arpeggio especially. guitar is played nice. there's not a lot of arrangement when it comes in initially, as it's just playing through the theme, but there's some fun stuff earlier that was clearly influenced by the original. the solo is great but doesn't really reference the original at all, and it goes into a comp section at the end that just kind of ends (i honestly though the JENOVA arpeggio at the end was going to a new part and was surprised when it ended). there's not a preponderance of source here, unfortunately, so it doesn't meet our submission standards for what a remix should consist of. there is a hard limiter on this that sounds kind of weird, a lo-fi crunchiness. other than that, i think it is pretty great to listen to. unfortunately the arrangement doesn't meet our criteria of being >50% source (arranged or otherwise). too bad! i'd love to hear this extended with more source in it, especially if it was arranged with some alternate chords, time signatures, or other concepts. NO

rubber stamping this. some notes about the piano. there is a lot of heavy left-hand blocks (the bottom of your chords). avoid doing 1-5-1 blocks in the left hand in general, as that tends to sound very heavy and dense. beyond that, it's obvious it's either heavily quantized to be rigid, or it's clicked in. i'd suggest adding some level of nuance to the more repetitive parts to help it not feel so rigid. variances in volume are the best way to do this, and some more flex in faster runs helps too. the strings throughout sound pretty fake. there's also not really much room verb applied to them, as opposed to the piano which has tons of verb, so they sound extra exposed. the instrumentation is holding this back. less mechanical-feeling, less heavy blocks, less repeated notes at the same velocity, etc. NO

initial fade-in is not my favorite, but the initial hit of everything sounds great, and i like the timbale fill. there's a solid minute before the melody really hits, and the entire build to that is nicely done. the first presentation of melodic content survives the transition to 4/4 fairly well, albeit with some significant off-beat stuff in the melody which initially is somewhat confusing until you hear it with a beat. there's some squiggly stuff in the chord structure around 2:00 that i think is primarily due to long fades on synths. the body of the piece gets pretty muddy there too. in fact, i'd say that about 2:00 through 2:25 is a bit of a bear trap, there's not much coming out that's not somewhat mangled by all the long delays and chord shifts. the lead synth literally never stops playing notes, so maybe giving it a chance to breathe once and a while would be good. it's also so loud that even the tail of notes is louder than the pads and some of the kit, so it's hard to really hear what's going on. at about 2:47 it really falls off the rails. it's just similar-sounding synths in different octaves, noodling and doing some really strange stuff, there's no phrasing or cohesive structure like there was in the intro, and then it fades out. the basic idea is neat, and sounds pretty good. the initial presentation of the build is cool. the first run-through of the melody is a bit weird timing-wise, like i said, but sounds good. after that it gets less and less cohesive. i'm all about stretching boundaries, but EDM's got four on the floor in 4 or 8 bar sections for a reason - the consistency helps tie the work together. there is essentially no phrasing after about the two minute mark here outside of one or two fills, and it just wiggles around until it fades out. i don't think this is cohesive enough. give me some more consistently-phrased melodic content with fills that are intentional, and fewer run-on phrases. toning down the tail length on the lead's verb and reducing the overall volume would help a lot too. NO

beautiful registration on the initial melodic intro. i love the clarity of that tone selection. similarly, beautiful job passing the little fanfares between hands around the 1:00 mark to about 1:30. 1:31 gives us the biggest hit of organ, but the immediate contrast provided by the following sections was more meaningful in that light. counterpoint around the melodic material at 1:56 was also nice. the continual approach to play the initial melodic riff with nothing else there is so fitting given the context of the game. the continued use of pedals to offset and make unsure the chords above them is a neat concept as well. whatever registration you're using at 3:05 is neat specifically because of the additional amount of air tone you're getting. i can't tell if it's intentional or not but it's a very organic choice. the pedal arpeggios at 3:43 are neat since they give the impression of something larger than yourself moving in the background, and allow a much more introspective and patient representation of the melody than you'd be able to get otherwise. i'm at almost 5 minutes and i don't feel it's dragged much at all. if i'm not mistaken, the chord structure used at this section of the arrangement reflects what you did at the beginning, yes? i wouldn't have minded some more interpretation here since it's similar registration for the left hand. i also didn't care for the lead that intro'd at 5:29 - i like the concept, but it's just too strong compared to the rest of the parts - maybe something more on the string spectrum? the following use of it at 6:35ish was much more enjoyable. around 7 minutes and i'm starting to notice the duration of the work. the last few minutes have felt more homogenous than i think you intended. right on cue, though, there's some variance especially in the pedal bass and chord structures and tempi (did your foot slip at 7:15 or is that just room resonance?), which is overdue but welcome. the settling down towards the final chord is great, just so patient and fulfilling. the voicing on said chord (this might be my headphones) is a little fifth-dominant and i don't hear the fundamental as much as i'd hoped, but it's still a solid resolution. i agree with LT that the track did feel somewhat source-light on first pass. overall i think this is a great addition to the community. i think this isn't as intentional, integrated, or in-depth as your last arrangement was, but i still am enjoying it a lot. YES

great original! love the vibe. intro is fun, and the initial hit is a big band sound that's great. the leads feel integrated and i had no issue hearing what was background vs. lead. i especially liked the little bit of glide on the lead, a little nuance that felt great. the break at 1:13 is welcome and well-handled. i liked the verb of the main band sound tailing into a wind sfx, that's a nice touch. half-time at 1:36 was a nice variance. i heard the arp that MW was talking about, but i'd argue that those levels were intentional - it's not supposed to be a big thing, just a filling synth. i actually liked the volumization of that ultimately. there's a build into one last blow at 2:20, and an extended outro with some string machines and pads. production-wise, yeah, it's loud! but i really appreciated how big and aggressive the mastering was. i love the verve this gives the track. unlike MW, i never lost track of the melodic line or felt it was in the wrong place in the mix. kudos to the arranger as well to not put in three or four instances of the (awesome) full band playing the melody at the end - never quite giving us enough of the payoff is a great way to keep listeners coming back. this is great. excellent work. YES

intro sounds good. there's a simplified version of the melody, and then it cuts to the initial melodic content at 0:41. there's a no-bass playthrough of the melodic content, and then everything's together at 1:08 - over half the track has been essentially intro content. the play-through of the melody with everything going is fine, and there's some new stuff at 1:35, which is welcome (but doesn't seem to have the same reverb and room presence as the rest of the track). the melody, bass, and drums are all copypasta from 1:08 though. then the track very suddenly ends at not quite 2:10 in duration. a few thoughts: this is a very, very short track. a true breakdown section where the beat is totally different, the synths change, and the approach changes would be well-suited to breaking up the track and providing dynamic contrast. the synth lead is fine initially, but not changing it the entire track is tiresome. mixing that up or layering in additional (more distinct, less fuzzy) leads would help a lot. this is a short melodic snippet. there's room for transitions, new chords, and new interpretations of the melody without adding too much bulk to the track. the arrangement on this one holds it back a lot. it's essentially half intro and half repeated copypasta. adding in a lot more variation to your counterpoint and synth work would help a ton. NO

about 3db headroom, artificially from the looks of it. neat initial hit at 0:10. the bass is pretty obviously fake right away and the quant on the drums feels really rigid, but the keys feel great right away. brass comes in at 1:21, and it sounds great as well. the rhythmic echoes in the rhodes behind the brass stuff is a great accent. the piece plods some from 1:50 to about 3:00, since the guitar, bass, and drums mostly do the same thing the whole time, but adding in some brass stabs helps. the abrupt transition at 3:00 is unsupported, but it's good to get away from the first several minutes since they were pretty repetitious. there's some really fun sound design in the last minute, although most of it is an extended fade. this is a neat idea and executed competently. i'm not as effusive as emu but i think this is a pass. YES

there is a ton of clipping reported by my daw, although it's not immediately audible. this is has a hip vibe and feels great initially. the copypasta is not good since it's like 1/5th of the track length that's repeated. the solo break at 1:11 is dope, and it goes back to the main theme well. the ending is kind of blah. ultimately, the nice solo break doesn't cover that there's too much here that's essentially the original transcribed. there's not enough 'transformative arrangement' to pass. if it was longer and the remainder wasn't the first minute, i'd be good, but as-is, it's too little System Glow and too much Hirasawa. NO

this is a really insightful idea that i've never considered. i recognized the consistent flex of time but didn't really intuit how much it mattered until i'm thinking about it now.

very loud intro and overall mastering. there's not really any volume variance here. the reedy bass instrument is neat, but is quite loud and covers up a lot of some of the fun nuanced background parts. it's actually the loudest thing throughout the entire track. i think that the balance is misprioritized. there's a break at 1:55 that is welcome, but the bass arp is just as loud as before so it's even more in the forefront. it's a neat synth but isn't saying stuff that's that important. around here i realized just how repetitive the first two-thirds of the track was, as the break was just what was needed. i am really liking the bosh beat 3+3+2 vibe that this has going on throughout. it's a catchy feel and helps drive the arrangement forward. i also like the various flutey synths and how they're used - they're just very quiet. the lack of an ending is disappointing at best. i'm sounding pretty critical, but i do enjoy the track and what you've done with it. i think it's over the bar but could have been a much better overall track with some more sensitive mastering and variation in what worked in the last third. YES

i'm hearing a lot of the same issues with the last track of yours i judged (Pixelman X). there is a lack of personalization and transformative arrangement for each track - they're just transcribed with the slightest bits of change here and there, with no thought to a cohesive whole. there's the same transitional synth used repeatedly (and it is not an enjoyable sound, it's not even in the right key half the time). there's the same synth leads used for each song, which gets fatiguing even if it was a strong arrangement. the drums are bog-standard and boring. the mastering is loud and aggressive and to the detriment of the track. the ending is a fadeout with a poor volume curve so there's a cutoff still at the end that's very auditble. total lack of QC there. any of the above issues are enough for me to not pass this. all of them together shows a lack of feedback gathering and application. please use the workshop to get feedback, and act on that feedback. this is a disappointing track to listen to since we've heard some great stuff from you in past submissions - this just feels extremely unfinished. NO

extremely hot intro. the orchestral taikos/toms are absolutely overwhelming the poor limiter. there is a lot of pumping on the intro section. there's a significant tonal shift at 0:31, and the subsequent instrumentation is fun but also very loud. there's some personalization in that next 30 seconds, although not a ton. there's a 'break' section at 1:09 or so, and we get another playthrough of the melodic content...and then there's a (also very loud) harpsichordy outro, and that's that. rubber stamping gario here. this is a great tech demo but there's another minute or two of mix missing. NO

seven tracks in three minutes? this better be incredible. the initial synth is not enjoyable to listen to as anything other than a pad with an lfo filter on it. the kick is big and fat, but the associated bass instrument sounds pretty weak, and the rest of what the drums are playing is essentially a loop for each individual track. there are no transitions, little to no changes for each theme, only one run-through of the melodic content for each theme, the same transition sound for many of the transitions...at least there's a break at 2:18 with some (one) new instruments. oh man, and there's even a fadeout for an ending! i think paneling this one was pretty generous. this needs a ton of work on the arrangement side. functional transitions, transformative arrangements of each work, and some new synth choices are a must. this is on autopilot way too much to be considered. NO

gonna add a note here - The Note is absolutely a 'real' one. it's a harmonic and used regularly in violin works. in fact i'd even go so far as to say that using it to end a phrase that's trailing off is standard for the instrument. this link has great examples of a ton of them, particularly the entry from Firebird: https://www.quora.com/What-classical-pieces-have-examples-of-good-usage-of-natural-or-artificial-harmonics-on-violin

some fun FMy intro synths with lots of action going on. the initial melodic presentation is in a shorter synth that's fairly generic. this is followed by several lead changes in a very short period of time. there's a quite loud transitional effect at 0:56, and some more lead changes, and the main track feels like it starts at 1:17. the lead here has some variety in what it's playing, although the hornet lead again feels randomly chosen and not really suited to what it's playing. there's more changes (is that an oboe?) and then it kinda just ends, until it doesn't for one last chord, and then it's done. this feels pretty scattered, both in terms of the cohesiveness (or lack thereof) implied by the leads, and in terms of where you're trying to go with the arrangement. you've got some personalization in the melodic content, which is great, but your constantly changing synth choices and lack of percussive elements until much later in the piece make the first half feel disjointed and the second half feel incomplete. i recommend, as MW said, identifying a style and sticking with it until you're comfortable enough with the rules to understand when breaking them is a good idea. i'd also suggest hitting up the workshop for some more assistance on iterating your remixes instead of just waiting for us to get to them ? NO

two similar sources. intro with pads and guitars is nice. the chords have a lot of complexity and passing tones naturally, so it's nice hearing the dissonances highlighted. the arpeggiated guitar parts starting at 0:54 are nice also, continuing to outline the chord structure from the original. the use of pads with a vocal component is also nice since it reflects the organ in the original (and the overall Renaissance music concepts shown throughout the game). at about 2 minutes in, i still have only really heard the melodic content once, which is great patience. the first big hit at 2:17 is just as fulfilling as expected. it's very heavy down low, as expected from the style, with a big push on the the 100-200hz band which is probably why it feels a little more oppressive than i'd expect. the kick especially is extra boomy, sounds like there's more verb on the entire kit than you may want given the technicality of what the kit's doing. as one does, we get like a minute straight of blastbeat under the lead guitars playing melodic content. there's a break at 3:41 for some arpeggiated lead parts. this builds back up to 'just' 16th-note double kick but ultimately does start to scale back into a break that lasts until the 5 minute mark - again, impressive patience with the arrangement. the break at 4:35 has a real post-rock feel to it. at 5:01, we get Garland's theme coming in and the unique chord progression that is that track's hallmark at 5:20. this bangs its way through the chord structure a few times at varying levels of intensity before another break at about 6:24. the instrumentation here is a clear callback to the second minute of the piece, and is a good setup for the last ~1:30 which is intense in parts even considering the rest of the track. there's a real post-rock vibe here especially at about 7:20, with the lead guitar's tone sounding like it's doubled by the earlier synth lead. i didn't find the overall mastering to be problematic. honestly, i thought this did a great job keeping melodic material clear and able to be recognized, and didn't have the drums so overwhelming that it took over the soundscape. it's certainly noisy and low-mid dominant but not enough for me to vote against it. i notably didn't feel fatigued at the end of 8 minutes of track, of which probably five are audio sausage, so that's pretty impressive all told. i think that you absolutely achieved your goal here. you wanted a melancholy, broody, intense track, and you accomplished that. nice work. YES

intro has some fun bell-like stuff going on, and almost immediately gets some real funky filtering applied. at 0:40 what you might call 'the beat' hits, and the melodic content is a little too quiet to hear what's going on there, but it's still funky and fun to listen to. there's a hard cut at 1:28 with some more heavy filtration. some real neat effects as a result are shown. this builds towards about 2:01, which has some neo-downtempo bass effects going on alongside a...heavily effected trash cymbal as a hi-hat and a tom as a snare? this is incredibly unique. what a neat soundscape. this drops off again at about 2:32 and moreso at 2:41. there's an extended filter-heavy outro with some metallic, shimmery vox pads representing essentially the first real chord blocks in the entire track, and then a single recap to then initial bell tones in the original key to show how far you've gone. this is amazing. the nuance to sustain such quiet energy without ever really using any traditional-sounding instruments is great, and the command demonstrated to handle all these filters with such careful gradation is impressive and repeatedly demonstrated. YES

hard to imagine a better pairing of game tone and intro track as this. FF9's intro track is close but nothing quite captures the wistfulness of FFX's story like the melody of this track. i respect very much your approach to this arrangement. violin and cello tone are obviously sampled (and way louder than the piano), but you have taken excellent care to realize them appropriately. 1:10 is lovely. the extra space you've added in timing is appreciated throughout. there's a few times it's a bit much but overall i like letting the melodic content breath more. 2:05 surprised me since it's essentially the first time that the arrangement strays from the original. the richer tone gained by using the lower range here is great. the doublestops in the violin are probably not super attainable by one player, but still a neat idea. adding the initial melodic lick in the cello under the C theme in the violin at 2:55 is superb work. 3:10's harmonic is a great idea and sounds great. i didn't think it was too loud, it's idiomatic and handled well. this is indeed a conservative arrangement overall, from the perspective of what the original has and what's included here. i'd argue however that the contrapunctal additions and especially the performance nuances added via space, timing, and tempi changes are very much transformative. i am absolutely shattered that we're not getting a live version of this by three players in the same room (or maybe four, all told), which i think would be just incredible, but as it is this is excellent and well above my bar throughout. YES

instrumentation quality isn't good enough to pass. there's certainly enough here to at least talk through arrangement and technical aspects. intro is pretty straightforward, maybe not as idiomatic to the horn (?) as it could be. there's some nice reinforcing of backing parts once the rest of the bandcomes in. don't fall into the trap that every instrument should be playing simultaneously! it's ok to let some parts stay out as you craft the backing parts. there's some nice harmonies at 0:52, great soaring line. there's a shift at 1:04 that eventually ends on an adjacent minor. i like this shift, but would have liked to see more during that transitional period that allowed the arrangement to have some dynamic contrast. an extended transition that lasted maybe 30 seconds would give the subsequent big blow in minor some contrast. there's some extra rhythmic elements in the low brass around 1:24 that i loved. there's another big build after this to a very heroic theme. at this point we're most of the way through the track with the trumpets leading the charge for nearly the whole thing. this is where dynamic contrast really helps a lot with giving the listener new things to listen to. if one of the previous instances of melodic content was in the winds with less backing brass, the trumpets here would be a welcome return to the original lead instruments, instead of yet another instance of the same thing being played. at 2:00 we get the melodic content in major again, and that sounds great. there's some noodling to get us to the ending, and an abrupt but not unexpected ending. overall you've got some great arrangement ideas going on here! the next step is branching out in the instrumentation you're using. there are a ton of free options out there that will give you much more realistic instrument samples, and in turn will improve your overall product a lot. you could also consider working with someone who has a working set of samples and ask them to help realize your orchestration. NO

rubber stamping this. overall, the balance seems to be in the right ear more heavily, and i also didn't like the audience noise or the extended ending. that said, it's a fun take with some cute personalization that call out to other parts of the CT soundtrack. YES