prophetik music

jive's right that this has an early OCR feel to it, especially with the drums. this is not my favorite style by any means, but it's still an interesting take on the original. after an abbreviated opening, the drums come in and set up the feel for the rest of the track. there's some subtle things in here that are fun ways to keep it moving, like the little bass link at 0:54, and the continued variance of the drum parts. melody comes in fully at 1:13, with some nice humanization on the articulations to keep it moving. i agree with jive that around this part i started to notice how dry the drums are, which kind of made it harder to hear everything as a cohesive whole. the faster drum parts (like 1:37 onward) really just take over the soundscape...i know it's stylistically correct but that doesn't make it less hard to hear what's going on behind it. there's some fresh pasta at 2:15 just without the drums, but it's still nice to hear and the vox clips help it feel new. the stutter synth after that section is another example of an attempt to keep it new and moving. the third time we hear the melody it does sound pretty cribbed from the earlier section, and it moves through that to the end fairly quickly. the end is abrupt at best, and the vox sample is...not what i'd have picked there. OC's always had a minimalist approach to composition (the technique, not commenting on the soundscape's fullness), and i felt this was in keeping with his personal style and wasn't too little of adaptation. overall it's somewhat repetitive and the soundscape has some identity issues going on, but overall this is a fine track and is definitely above the bar. YES

i wasn't on the original decision, so this is my first crack at this one. dynamic and exciting intro. initial presentation of the theme is well-realized, and uses samples that are definitely good enough to handle them. you do a nice job handing off the theme often while keeping it cohesive. playing with the main riff's location on the scale and then exploring alternate keys, like at 1:05, is a great way to get my attention in a good way. the subsequent block chords and tremelos were a little brusque and covered up some fun theme ideas, but still solid. the piano sounds super weird - even with no pedal there should be some carryover in tone, and the lack of room verb really shows up there. the subsequent section starts off beautiful but does get too loud for the samples you're using to feel realistic. right around 2:11 you start to go to a higher velocity trigger on your violins especially, and it really affects it at 2:27ish where it's just so robust of a sound and sounds odd. the ensemble stuff that comes in at 2:39 though sounds great and is back into what made the earlier sections sound great. the chorale at 2:53 is great - i'm a sucker for a chorale, they're so much fun! - and provides a nice break from the more martial feel of most of the rest of the track. the ending is sudden but not abrupt, and the track ends well. this is a great resub. nice work. YES

opening is great, so much excellent atmosphere. the echoed bells at 1:14 are really fun, although they're a little more forward in the mix than i'd expect (they don't appear to be in the same sound space there). the transition at 1:38 is fantastic, and the instrument choices and usage right after that is just so evocative...the sliding bass, the plectral instrument with sustained tremelo, the attention paid to the percussion at ~2:05...just very, very good. there's so much building energy through here. the subsequent fall-off around 2:30 was also great. i got chills from the majora's mask chords when they came in and i recognized them. 3:20 we start to get some payoff for the build we've heard the entire track. the strings add a ton of character to this section. there's some obvious limiter engages at 4:07 onward, and i hear what sounds like unintentional distortion in the right ear right at 4:33 (which is really disappointing since it's such an intense and amazing build). the ending is also great, i love the whispers. i get why we have to review judge tracks but sometimes it feels silly. this isn't 100% perfect but it's a delight pretty much all the way through. YES

rubber stamping this. the switch to 6/8 is such a great, simple change. i agree with gario that it sounds solid as-is. i particularly like the break at 1:21 and subsequent transition at 1:34. the solo at 2:10 is great and i particularly like the lead tone. the ending is indeed kind of weird and unexpected but it's not a game breaker. nice work. YES

yeah, gario hits this one on the head.the hard limiting that shows up often (you can even see it clearly on the waveform) is really noticeable. most of the time it appears to be due to wide pads with tons of air in them being chorded - you want to avoid that wherever possible, just separate the air and the pad out and chord the pad only if you're going to do that. in terms of arrangement, i can't say that i find your changes to the repetitive plucked synth for example to be positive - stripping out the octave shifts makes it much more bland, and that's never something you want to say about one the defining features of the original track. there's some really fun ideas here, honestly - i really like a lot of the textures. they're just not EQed together at all, so your limiter is obviously engaging way more than you want. a production pass would help significantly. i think the arrangement's probably fine even if i really don't like the change to that plucked synth. this isn't there yet. NO

oh, right away i really like the slower pace. that's a really fun way to add some difference to this track. i agree with jive right away that the synths have little to no volumization to them - it's a lot of layering synths in similar ranges on top of each other. the first full hit at 0:48 immediately had me bobbing my head - what a great feel. the drums have zero low end to them, which is unfortunate, because i love what they're doing. jive's right that there's a ton of noise in the lower ranges in the synths that needs to be cut before the drums speak out and feel right. once you've isolated those middle synths, making the kick and bass speak clearer will be quite easy. the break at 1:38 was well-timed, and gave it a bit of time to breathe. i liked the build as well, although throughout i just felt that the backing synths were simply too loud. i get that - it you write a fun part, you want everyone to hear it! - but it's just too much. turn your volume way down until you can only hear one thing - if that one thing isn't the melody, you're likely doing something wrong from a mixing perspective. the drop into 2:25 was fun, and i liked the arp that's right in front. there's still not enough bass clarity here, but it sounds real fun. i like the liberties taken with the melodic line here, but the drums underneath dropping and doing more d'n'b stuff was actually kind of disappointing because i just couldn't hear what they were doing. i love the idea but it wasn't really executed well. the ending is fairly sudden but not problematic. overall i think the arrangement is fine - it's certainly not groundbreaking, and it didn't take into account some of the mid/later parts of the original, but it's recognizable and different enough to make it over the bar. i like the synth work itself, but agree that it needs a mastering pass before it really feels ballsy enough to have the punch that you're going for. filtering out the low end of most of those textural synths is a great place to start. i'd love to hear a resubmission but this doesn't pass muster just yet. NO

i like the intro a lot. the initial feel is a lot like what blue man group's music from their first album sounds like - if you replaced the initial synth with tubes, i'd think it was them. the guitar especially sounds a lot like it. i like the tone of both the slide and chorded guitar a lot. the breakdown at 1:10 is a great break as well, although i noticed that the crash cymbal doesn't sound super great here (it's very high-freq and doesn't sound very real). at 1:36 things pick up a bit. unlike jivemaster i didn't have a problem with the balance here as compared to what's going on in the original - i can still hear the different parts without too much trouble, and i didn't think that the lead synth was a backing part at any point. i do think at 2:27 the backing synths are a bit loud, but it's more an issue with a lot occupying the same octave so it's hard to clearly differentiate between them. spacing some of the parts out a bit would help a lot here. there's another nice breakdown at 3:19, which comes up and goes through a recap. this recap does sound pretty similar to the earlier sections that have similar stuff - admittedly by this point i was hoping for some variation in the lead synth and didn't hear any. the ending is very suddenly clumsy - the synth sounds out-of-time which may be an artifact of how your DAW handles time changes, but it doesn't sound right at all - and then what sounds more like an orchestral cymbal roll leads us out. the arrangement is solid throughout, although i'd have loved to hear more change in the melodic line that's in the lead synth, and there were a few times that parts all overlapped in the same octave and some spacing would have really helped. additionally i didn't have any real issues with production outside of a few nitpicks. there were some things i didn't like (the crash cymbal and later cymbal roll didn't sound good, and the ending really is very clunky), but overall i think this one is pretty competent. the guitar's really nice throughout and i can hear everything without too much fuss outside of 2:27. nice work =D YES

the opening piano has a lot of uncanny-valley playing. there's a lot of attention paid to dynamics, but it sounds like there's no pedal used at all (0:19 is a good example, the left hand is very non-idiomatic for a piano) for some parts, and then too much sustained in other parts (the sustained left hand at 0:27 in what sounds like another piano just sits there and muds everything up). another thing i noticed is that on most rolled chords (ie. 1:00), the roll starts on the downbeat instead of leading to the downbeat, which causes it to sound strangely out of time when the rest of it is overly mechanical with no nuance in tempo. there's some attention to tempo at 1:08ish, but the subsequent lack of pedal and dramatic range difference between the hands result in what is again pretty uncanny-valley writing. this continues for a while - lots of 2+ octave differences between the hands resulting in a disjointed arrangement featuring a lot of muddy left hand blocks (1:39 is particularly egregious) with no clear reason or thematic idea being portrayed by that choice. the shift in style at 2:09 was welcome, although i again found the rolled chords starting on the beat rather than resolving there to be problematic (more so when the melody came back in). the tempo shifts around 2:45 were real nice when coupled with the dynamics, but i found the left hand to be too strong at 2:53 when it comes in again. the low Bb at 3:02 doesn't sound good at all - too low, too many higher partials causing it to sound out of tune. and the ending, featuring the second piano, just shows off how oddly-mastered that one is - you can barely hear it throughout until suddenly it's right there, and there's no body to it. i'm being pretty harsh about this track and i recognize that. i think there's some interesting arrangement ideas here, and i like the concept (adapting this piece to piano). i do not like the implementation at all. it's heavily robotic from a tempo perspective, the piano you chose has nowhere near enough sampling cutoffs or dynamic variability to handle a work so clearly designed around dynamic contrast, the second piano you chose is unable to be heard for 80% of the track and doesn't sound good when you can hear it, the part writing is so often very far apart causing the left hand to be muddled and the right hand to be octaves above the supporting parts, and the lack of traditional pedal usage - even simulating it via note durations - lends itself to a very odd listening experience. this one needs some significant work on the implementation - or, more likely, a rework to fit into real hands and then a live player - to hit what i believe you're going for. NO

great background on the track, thanks for that. this has some real fun ideas in the intro. leaning into the phrygian mode with that b2 is really interesting from an auditory standpoint and helps keep it from feeling really settled into a key right off the bat. the odd-sounding chords are actually in the key (phrygian has some really wild chord uses), and are also real cinematic and add a ton of tension to an otherwise fairly straightforward melodic snippet. rising tension in the orchestration and keys come together into a big chorus at 1:26 that sounds great. there's some timing things in here, notably between the triplets and the background in duple meter. there aren't two sets of triplets that are the same in terms of timing which is an issue. there's a nice shift in timbres at 2:13 and then a big dropdown in energy at 2:25. there's some fun playing with the four-note motif featuring that flat 2 again, and then a big swell to a big very cinematic finish. i don't hear anything wrong about the borrowed chords at the end. you see this kind of thing where someone pins a motif and then plays with keys around it often in this kind of writing, especially for credits music. i never felt like i lost the key or that anything that was used didn't make sense. i agree that the instruments used across the board feel pretty low-poly. the keyboard's obviously a keyboard and not a piano, and the strings, choir, and percs all are well-used but don't sound particularly realistic. i also do think that by the end the rising thematic content (C F A G) gets a little tired, but there's such variance in how it's being supported in the background that it really does help make up for it. overall this is a great arrangement with some not-as-good samples holding it a bit back. it's definitely over the bar though and is a great representation of a classic track. great work. YES

this is a fun adaptation that features some unexpected turns. the opening's very light and airy, which is great. the bass drum is quite blatty like jive said, but the rest of the instruments fit well and do a good job balancing with each other. when more of the ensemble comes in at 0:42, it's still pretty nice balance. at 1:03 or so, we get a bigger, more instrumented orchestra, and the flute starts to sound a bit weird since it has a very light timbre and it's somehow singing over everything else, but it's still well-played and sounds pretty. the addition of violin is nice, and the great time change at 1:25 is a good way to keep interest through that section. around here (and a few flourishes before) i noticed how fake the strings sounded on articulations, but i didn't find it keeping me from enjoying what they were playing. 1:57's tone shift continued to be interesting, and i liked the way you shifted to a different source entirely without it feeling weird. there's an odd repeated orchestra hit at 2:36 that sounds intentional but admittedly doesn't make a lot of sense. this entire transition is kind of odd, but it does the job to get us to a new section. 2:58's recap sounds great and features some fun counter-movement in the winds and percussion. there's a fairly well-executed ritardando, and some nice live flute to play us out. from a mastering perspective, i agree that it's very loud, and that there's some compression artifacts / knee noise in the louder sections (notably after 2:58). however i don't think this impinged on enjoyability of the track. this has a great arrangement and is technically sound enough to overcome some minor issues with samples and mastering. nice work! YES

wow, this is really fun! this kind of uptempo jazz track can be really hard to nail, but you've done a great job combining the melodic writing on the guitar (great tone throughout!) with some clever time changes and busy background parts. this is an obvious pass for me. my only complaints were that the drum could have used a tighter snare and more beater on the kick to make the complex drum parts easier to understand cognitively, and i'd have loved to have more treble in the bass to allow the attacks to be clearer - again because it was playing great stuff and i wanted to hear more of it. this is really well done. looking forward to hearing more by you on the site! YES

evocative title and backstory. the delayed keys in the beginning is a nice starter, and the guitar sounds great when it comes in. the drums sound pretty good (snare's really poppy which is not what i expected for this style of guitars, but it's so crisp that it fits really well), but i agree with jive that a bass guitar isn't immediately evident, maybe due to the detuned nature of the guitars? there's a decent amount of bass in the guitar but no sub content specifically, but it sounds pretty good even with that. we get one real clear playthrough of the melodic content before a solo break. the band comes back in full for a bit and we're in a breakdown / build at 1:50, which sounded good, and more full band work at 2:03 or so, featuring some more complex rhythmic content in the background and some guitar extended techniques which were interesting. around 2:40, after the doubletime kicks, i noticed that my ears were getting pretty tired of hearing the melody played the same over and over, and that we'd not really seen much difference in the melodic presentation in some time. i liked the textural elements that had been included, including more consistent changing of the background rhythms and continued variation of the drum groove, but it was certainly feeling repetitive. there's a break section around 2:57 and one last blow at 3:15 of the melody, and some simple outro keys echoing the beginning. the outro's real short, hardly even worth the name. this is an interesting one. i really like post-grunge's focus on pentatonic riffs that are rhythmically complex layered over drums that echo rhythmic content, and this has that style represented in spades. i particularly liked interplay like right at the beginning, at 0:57-0:59. the guitar performance is actually really solid. i didn't mind at all the doubletime sections that jive mentioned as a problem - they sounded about as good as i'd expect for the tempo and velocity, honestly! - and the mostly dry guitars fit that same post-grunge style really well. this kind of performance wouldn't sound out of order if it was by breaking benjamin or three days grace, for example. if anything i'd like to hear a bit more gating on them, and a slightly crisper attack on the more marcato (vs strummed/rhythm guitar) sections, to emphasize the space in between the notes a bit more. ultimately i don't hear production issues that really hold this back. it's super rhythm guitar driven, and it sounds great because of a great performance there. my main complaint would be the arrangement, mainly in the representation of the melodic content being fairly static for most of the track. this is nowhere near enough to keep this track from passing though, i don't think. really great take here. YES

oh, this is really neat. the entrance of the bass is just filthy...it sounds fantastic. the build up to the melodic content at 1:29 was well-paced and sounded beefy without being overblown. the FM synths sound just great, tons of blurps and buzz with that trademark digital feel. i agree with rexy that the arrangement as-is is great, tons of bits and bobs pushed around into an entirely new-feeling track. i didn't have a significant problem with the mastering other than it indeed being bright in the high end. this is essentially a rubber stamp. this is clearly over the bar and is a great listen. YES

interesting concept for this one. i agree with jive that it starts out wonky until the hats come in to help frame out the beat. once it starts, though, i like the sound quite a bit. there's a good overall tone to the track, and the bells in the background echo the first few bars of the original in a nicely-adapted manner. the melody sounds great once it starts up too, the amount of grit and wobble of the intonation sounds very stylistically accurate. after this we get more of the bells/echoed bells section, and a break with winds and mallets. the break is well-timed as it was getting fairly repetitive at this point (an element of the style, to be sure). after the break we get more melody and then an extended section - probably too extended - noodling through the b section again. there's more detuning here and it starts to get to be too much, with the entire mix dropping nearly a quarter tone in several places. the outro is simple and fairly repetitive. all in all this is probably three minutes of material scraped over about 3:50 worth of bread, but i'm more ok with this than normal since repetitive, droning textures are a hallmark of this style. from a content perspective, taking larry's timings and adding in the sections that are predominantly the bells from the first few sections, i get significantly more than 50%. so i think that i'm good there. from a production perspective, my only real complaints are the overuse of detuning and that it could be a few db louder. so i think i'm good on this one. YES

another comically quiet arrangement from RET. a few small spikes keep it from needing at least 6db to make it to normal. the opening is very pretty and features some push and pull in the tempo that is really nice. the countermelodies at 0:34 are nice and well-handled. the strings that come in around 0:45 are pretty fakey compared to what's happened thus far unfortunately. the marcato section that follows that however is very well-articulated and sounds great. there's a wrong note in the ascending bass/piano line at 2:09 - the chromaticism demonstrated there isn't reflected in the upper lines. i'd have expected a borrowed V there instead. at 2:20 the main ensemble drops and it's a much lighter arrangement to carry us out. as jive said, it's pretty, technically simpler than previous works, but sounds great and does what you intended. i think this is over the bar albeit closer than recent submissions. YES

tons of melodic content right away, so that's clearly not going to be a problem here. there's an absolute brick wall for a limiter on this, but i don't hear any distortion as a result, so i'm inclined to give that a pass. the initial section with the whole band at 0:34 was real solid and fun to listen to. starting at 1:42 there's a repeating pitch in the right ear that's really annoyingly loud compared to everything else and it keeps going for nearly a minute, which i found to be really not something i liked. i did like what else was going on during this section, though, notably the variety of instrumentation and the space that everything had to do its own thing. there's a recap at 3:08 which is still enjoyable to listen to and hasn't gotten old despite being essentially the entire song. the outro is a nice shift and does a good job winding it down in a way that made sense. this is pretty competent from start to finish. i like it. YES

i like the initial ambiance for sure. there's some fun ideas going on in there to keep it not just a sustained pad, although ultimately it's real long, probably too long before we get a real instrument. when the melody comes in at 1:30 with the drums, i really like the simple texture around it. i do think the melody is far too loud (i actually turned down my headphones at this part), especially consider how spare the background is. it needs to come down dramatically for it to be balanced there. there's some really obvious machine-gun hats at 2:02 and afterwards, too - it's very obviously fake drums there. the subsequent plectral delayed stuff in the background is great, though, and sounded really interesting. the shift to the b section at 2:46 was interestingly handled, and the bass did a nice job driving it forward. there's some wrong notes at 2:58 (bass is right, the pad in the background is a half-step off and conflicts). around 3:15ish i felt like this track was getting stale, so i'm glad for the shift at 3:23 to break it down. however, now that the bass is more exposed, it became really obvious that the bass is intensely sharp, like at least an eighth of a tone. it sounded a bit funky before but i associated it with pad IQM. it's distractingly bad, enough for me to NO it just based on that. the glitch break was actually pretty fun, for at least a while. i recognized a few of the effects as being dblue's Glitch plugin, maybe? it was surprising (at least a few of the hits were really notably loud which was not great, like the hard pingpong at 4:58) if only because you hadn't really done anything with electronic effects before this in the track, but it was still interesting. i do think it was a bit longer than needed, but i liked the exploratory aspect. the subsequent shift to piano was pretty if simple. this would have been a perfect time for you to really get into playing with the chord structure and exploring the original more, but instead it's essentially the same progression and melodic content we've heard all along without much personalization. the very low left hand hits were distracting since they were two octaves below what anyone could have played, but that's more personal preference, i think. bringing it all back together at 6:00 was indeed fun to hear. i was also tired of the dizi at this point, but i liked how much more cinematic this was. there's what could be a really cool moment at 6:25 but isn't (i'll explain in depth below), and a few weird notes in the background parts, but overall this section is interesting and more intense which is great. the ending is fairly sudden (again, i'll say more below), but i liked what happened, i just think it needs to be set up and prepped more. @Emunator, the awkward chord you're referencing sounds actually right but really poorly handled. the piece overall is in e minor, and is primarily moving in a stepwise fashion (em, D, C, D). starting at 6:21, you've got C, then a D7/F#, then an am, then a B of some kind. so, that's a normal progression here (C and D from the stepwise progression, then am and B as a cadential unit, a normal iv-V cadence). but the melody is based around the E-B jump that starts it, and that means that when you've moving in an unstable manner (C-F# is a tri-tone!) to D7/F#, you've got a melody based around B and E (neither of which is in that chord), the bass is in subbass territory so there's no clear pitches there AND it's out of tune by a lot, you've got a counter melody moving around non-chord tones (B-C-D-C in the dizi in the background, settling on the 7 which is the most unstable of D7/F#'s tones), and then the F# doesn't resolve stepwise like it wants to, it goes to an am. so the pitchy bass, combined with what could be a fun alternate form of the chord if it wasn't so unsupported (F# needs to be reinforced elsewhere, no non chord tones included), combined with the movement from that unstable cadential form of D7 to an am which isn't naturally a cadence point - all that combines to make it sound just wrong. and i'd argue that it is, it's significantly difficult to hear where the arranger's going with that. i'd argue that's another auto-NO moment. overall, this is a very interesting track. there's a lot of technical miscues - the out-of-tune bass, wrong notes in the background, the awkward chord at 6:25, the lack of fills or transitional elements throughout, the very simplistic and rote drums - but there's a really cool track crystalizing here, i think. with some significant attention to details, this could be a really special work. right now i think it needs some more workshopping, but it's definitely got a place here if some of those missteps are cleaned up. NO

love the initial guitar tone. the initial presentation of statts is great, and really pretty sparse but in a good way. like jive said, the transition at 1:54 was pretty awkward and abrupt, but the main body of that song's realization is pretty fun to listen. there's not a lot of arrangement going on there, but the performance is good, and it gets more complex as it goes along. around here i noticed that the drums are really feeling pretty dull - there's not a lot of highs, and the the primary patterns they're playing were pretty blah and repetitive (fills are great though). another awkward transition into Dungeon at 3:55ish, but it's kind of a weird track so there's something expected there. this one's a heavier adaptation and i think it sounds particularly good. the tempo shift coming out of that was well handled, and the transition to the bit from statts and into the main theme was handled much better than the last two transitions. the final solo is straight fire as expected. from a mastering perspective, the bass isn't super present except in a few places, and the drums overall are definitely secondary and not bright as i'd expect, but the guitars sound good throughout. the sfx are fun and not overused or dynamically awkward. i think that the mastering's fine overall, though i'd like to hear more highs from the drums and more body from the bass. overall this is a fun track that goes through some great originals in fun ways. it's on the lesser side for arrangement, but that's ok, and the solos where they are have some great stuff to say. nice work. YES

this is beautifully played, well orchestrated, pretty well mastered (there's some obvious compressor brickwall going on between 1:30 and 1:45, and again around 2:32, if you look at the waveforms), and overall an attractive and entertaining package. unfortunately it doesn't have even a little arrangement as defined by our site. this is what i'd term a realization or transcription, meaning that you cribbed something wholesale from another track. covers are certainly fun and enjoyable, but we don't post them on our site. from the Submission Standards: i'll point specifically at the second and third bullets here. you've essentially taken the same chord progressions, at about the same tempo, in the same genre, with roughly the same instrumentation, playing roughly the same rhythms and dynamics, and added no original content, harmonies, or counter-melodies to this track. there's some transitions as required between the individual songs, and those are well-handled, but unfortunately this is just outside the scope of OCR's content policy. if you wished to make a version of this that was within our content policy, i'd suggest starting with either a different ensemble focus (ie. a chamber group) or some altered chords and time signatures. these are simple modal themes that are exciting and majestic in their implementation but could really be even more powerful if represented as a mournful dirge in a related minor key, for example, or based in an altered time signature (the dovahkiin theme would be particularly good in 4/4 or 7/8, IMO). just some thoughts, certainly not requirements for posting. thanks for the submission! this is a very fun track to listen to. NO

what a fun choice of tracks for this one. right off the bat i noticed that the intro is a bit heavier in the right ear, but that's minor. there's a touch of off-time in the initial melodic presentation of Distorted Fantasy, but it's more of an annoyance. the band sounds great, lots of energy and good overall sound. the break for the piano solo is well-timed to keep the style fresh, and it's competently handled. i liked the turnaround in the guitar solo around 2:01ish, and the backing brass that comes in after that is real nice. the transition into Blue Skies is great - i barely noticed the shift! - and the subsequent tempo change for Sunset over the Hills is great and gives the track a chance to reset and mix it up. the bass solo was dope, easily my favorite part of the song, and the subsequent guitar solo did a good job adding some contrast from a chord and melodic standpoint before we get to World of Ice and Snow. the outro using Celebration is a great way to wrap the track overall. and, from an overall perspective, there's more than enough content from the sources to balance the original content, even if you ignore the solos over the source chord progressions. so from an arrangement perspective, this track is great. mastering-wise, i found the track to sound great also. the guitars lead throughout but there's a lot going on in many places and i never felt like it was cluttered or stuff was in the way. you did a good job varying band dynamics from various breaks so it doesn't just sound loud the whole time, and you did a good job making the full band sound balanced while still being energetic. so great work. this is an easy one for me. nice work! YES

classic track right here. there's some stellar arrangements of this one out there on official arrange cds. let's take a listen. the initial presentation of the theme is in the harp, mirroring the version on the Best Friends arrange album. it's well-performed, and features some sfx behind that are light and airy, matching the style. the second section brings in some well-realized mallets and light strings. there's some nice melody-adjacent arrangement here to string out the original into some new territory. the overall arrangement is minimal aside from realizing it on the harp and a few bits of original content, but what's here is probably enough. it's well recorded and the supporting synths where added are handled delicately as expected for Rebecca. my main complaint throughout is that the performance felt a hair fast outside of one specific spot that's refreshingly out of time around 1:50. the harp playing sounds very pretty, so it's a shame there isn't a bit more time to enjoy the sustains. There's also probably close to 12 or 13 seconds that can be trimmed off the end. It's quiet enough that compression would be a real bonus, as well. overall this is really straightforward, but handled very competently. this is on the bare minimum line for arrangement but the performance and recording are real nice. A trimmed ending and this one's good enough for me. Adding compression and bringing the overall volume up would be fantastic but not required. YES

right off the bat, the lagging guitars caught me off guard too. i like the idea, but it's significant and notably distracting. the rest of the build is pretty nice. 0:54 is a significant change, and it sounded pretty good. rexy's right that everything's pretty vanilla, but it's put together in a fun way that is better than the sum of its parts. i loved the build from ~1:40ish to 2:15, but the payoff wasn't near as good as i'd hoped. the backing synths (notably the mid-range synths and some pads) were quite loud, the kick and snare weren't nearly loud/EQed properly enough, and so overall it lost a lot of power. there's a nice little breakdown and build back to another big presentation of the melody, but the same issues persist - quiet/muffled drums, mid-synth domination, etc. a lot of those big synths need some serious EQ to keep them grouped together and not overlapping each other. the delayed guitar in the build needs to be fixed again as well. around 4:30ish, i started feeling that this song had told me what it was trying to say, and it started to get repetitive. i think the last quarter or so is pretty much saying the same as the beginning, and so it got stale. trimming it down to mayba just under 5 minutes would do some wonders with keeping it moving. the ending was nice if abrupt, calling back to the opening. i liked the chord changes and the shutdown motif with detuning down. overall this is a track that's pretty close and just needs some cleanup before it's ready for primetime. an EQ pass to notch in most of your synths and allow the kick and snare room to do their thing is desperately needed. a volumization pass that tones back most of those mid synths doing harmony and focuses each section on what's most important will really help as well. finally, correcting the delayed guitar parts will tie those two sections together a lot more cohesively. good work! it's almost there. NO

it is! i didn't expect it to get there for another week. glad you like it =)

i'll address the elephant in the room first, which is that i think that the entire intro from 0:22 to 0:58 should be included rather than being so granular about the timings. adding the extra 17 seconds puts us at 49.49% (using 4:55 as the ending), which is close enough that gut feeling should matter. along those lines, i agree that the vox samples are overused, however they are used often in areas that are not directly melodically tied to the original, which lends a bit towards the halfway mark. i absolutely don't think that layering vox samples over top of a track is enough to call it a remix (hello, random parappa no override from 2005, featuring spicy larry!), but this is clearly a remix with significant melodic content from TMNT, and therefore should at least be considered. so no, i don't think that the slightly below 50% source usage is enough for an automatic no. the intro is pretty smooth, and features a ton of wet fx and a bell and lead synth that's a touch too loud for me when up higher (sounds like both weren't volumized from where they are later). the build is pretty nice, with a good sweep on the filter and a great sound when the song begins in earnest at around 1:05. i was really digging the synth solo at 1:58 as well. the sax part isn't my favorite thing (i am pretty biased against fake sax), but what a fantastic job handling it within the soundscape to make it sound pretty solid. rexy's right when she talked about how you did a great job handling articulations. the break at 3:09 was well handled, too. the consistent 16th notes under everything helped keep the energy up despite the languid vocals there. after that is a recap and a good outro. there's still some volumization needed here - vox and bells get suddenly louder, indicating that the compressor's handling them instead of some manual attention to knobs there - but the song ends comfortably and it isn't unexpected. overall i do like the arrangement, the production values are really pretty high outside of a few nitpicks about volume, and the song flows well from start to finish. i think that the source content is close enough that this makes it over the bar. YES

i can hardly hear the leads throughout. it's hard to call this a valkyrie profile mix if there's no melody. the performance are rock-solid and i thought the arrangement was fine. you do a good job of keeping the track moving with different variations, although it's a little stale by the end with some of the repeated licks. the band itself sounds great too. the harpsichord and organ are essentially unable to be heard, though, so that's not passing. this needs a volumization pass and a better organ patch to help it cut. NO