prophetik music

lot of interesting attention paid to the initial atmosphere. melodic content comes in at 0:31 (a little heavy in the right ear) and is both immediately recognizable and creatively realized via the synths. i really like the buzzy bass synth under all of the bubbly, undistorted synths above it. the build into 2:08 is fantastic, and the subsequent chord changes to the melodic content are just perfect...i wish i'd thought of the idea! the transition into the original Brinstar theme at 2:50 was also great, love the choral vox behind it. if i'm going to complain about any one part of it, it's that it meanders a little between maybe 3:00-4:00 simply because it goes through a lot of melodic content in a row without a break. a break to the lead synth in there may have helped prevent that, but it's a nitpick at most. there's a great drop beat that flows into an extended ending around 4:20. this is fantastic. what a great track. i have really nothing significant to complain about. YES

i feel the dynamics compare favorably to several other wide-dynamic works that i've heard in the past. the recording of martin's mass by the westminster cathedral choir won awards for its mastering of a highly dynamic work and it has a wider ranger than this one (the sanctus movement is a great example of this if you can find it unaltered, i can send it if you want). the nature of the medium is such that significant variation in volume is a big part of the instrument. also i really want to hear the 7.1 mix on a proper set of speakers.

i agree that this is a cover. the performance is fun and exciting, but there's little melodically that's new and different or re-arranged. some sick drum work though! the keys at 1:35 are super robotic and lacking any sense of velocitization, which is noticeable. there's also basically not a break of the strings/keys playing the melody for most of the track outside the pretty sick guitar lead near the end, which gets tiresome quickly. ultimately the lead work in the guitar might be enough for me to squeak it by on arrangement, but it falls too short on production. agree with MW on production for sure. there's nothing below 70hz and nothing really above about 2k either. it's remarkable actually how little highs there are when it still sounds pretty good. i wish there was more attention on the rhythm guitars, too - it just sounds like a single take and isn't layered from what i can hear, so it's pretty thin. i think that it's a fun track to listen to but doesn't meet our arrangement guidelines. it'd be a sick DoD track though ? Cleaning up the EQing so it has, like, any lows or highs will be a big help. stretching more on the arrangement would help a lot too in terms of meeting our guidelines. NO

what a disparate group of games. i love how this comes together, though. great job picking ideas and representing them in ways that are immediately recognizable but definitely different from one another. this is a bit of a mess in terms of instrumentation and realization, but there's absolutely a great track under this. in fact, i think just fixing the mastering would be enough, although some additional attention to most of the individual parts would result in a really huge upgrade overall. so i don't mind the opening bell section. sounds like you've got a basic pad under a very sine-y bell, and aside from the high notes being a bit too loud it's a very peaceful opening. i lost track a few times of where the measure start was in here - using lower notes to delineate an overall measure structure will help ears keep track of where you are. i like the initial guitar part as well! there's a fun concept of space you're working on here. the issue is that your bass, rhythm, and lead instruments all are a little too similar in tone. i would suggest adding some grit to the lead to make it more distinct from the rhythm instrument, removing some of the bass out of the rhythm instrument, and then make your bass guitar a little more distinct in tone by removing a bit of the highs and also probably using a different style (finger instead of picked would help differentiate for example). lastly, adding some panning or chorus to your rhythm will help spread it out of the exact middle of everything, where it's getting lost. i love the strum at 1:19. the drums sound pretty generic. if it was me, i'd tone them back a touch overall in volume, and use less busy patterns when everything's going on the snare at least (the snare seems to mostly be doing the same thing throughout). at 1:30 when everything comes in, the lead's a little too quiet next to everything else. i'd bring pretty much everything down (rather than the lead up) a bit. i like the simplicity of the strings but they're definitely too loud for a pad role - the rhythm guitar's more interesting, so let that be more in front. the subsequent piano section is nice but everything's the same velocity. bringing the velocities down a bit and letting the volume knob handle how it speaks out will help there. many of your transitions are twice as long as they need to be and serve to highlight your not-real bass and drums. i'd cut them down. the texture at 2:20 is simpler, but again the not-real bass and drums take the fore rather than the interesting rhythm guitar and lead (and later the synth). some more automation in your mastering will help with that. i found the ending to be unsatisfying ending where it did. i liked the arpeggiation going on, but didn't think it needed to change chord or end on such an unsupported chord form. sitting on the root would have been fine there. to be honest, i think it's short for the amount of stuff it covers. you're not really in the song until 1:29, and it's done by 3:05. that's a good feeling to have. to recap - i think volume-wise there's a lot of automation and attention needed, and some EQing to help filter out unneeded freqs in the low-mid would help clear it up. i think some panning would be good - there's essentially none, and you've got lots of instruments that could really be clearer with that - and i think that once that's done, brightening it up a bit with some multiband compression would be the icing on the cake. however, some attention to what things are playing what (like the opening being difficult to follow, or the piano's velocities) will help a ton as well. this is a great start that will be really fun with some workshopping. please do follow through, i'd love to hear it done. NO

wow, only 1.5db of headroom. a turning point?! this is an intentionally difficult choice for a remix as there's only a few motifs to hang your hat on. there's the offbeat percussive sound, the I-bVII-I piano chord pattern, and a bucket of sfx. there's some wind samples initially and the original's downbeats in the piano. there's some attempts at replicating the sfx with orchestral instruments, and some really badly exposed samples of winds. the clarinet and bassoon's attacks just sound very unreal. at 1:07, they're attacking just separate from each other and it's intensely distracting from anything else going on, until the keys come in at 1:27. those keys have zero room effect on them and also sound very strange in a bad way - no verb, right up front in the mix when everything else has more atmosphere on it. it seems so baffling to me that rebecca can have these incredibly handled sections that are so atmospheric like at 2:25 and then put a keyboard with zero reverb right next to it. i think that the source is prevalent and what interpretation there is is more than sufficient. there's a lot of what i'll call adjacent arrangement (that is, taking the original idea and applying various techniques to transform it into something relative but not obviously the same) and a lot of interesting uses of orchestral percussion to keep it different in my ear. the lack of a cohesive soundscape and sample issues are what kills this for me. if rebecca takes a bucket of reverb and slathers it on so that there's more of a cohesive sound to this, it's a pass for me and i'd grit my teeth about the samples. fixing up the sample quality or using them in a method where it's not very obvious they're not real would be even better. NO

classic track. initial filtro needs some q. it was hard to tell what was going on there. once it comes in though, it's a big, dark, heavy soundscape. i can hear what you're going for, but MW's right - there's very little above maybe 2khz. additionally, the bass is pretty muddy since the guitars, bass, and kick are all living down there with nothing above to help them be differentiated. it's hard to really hear the bass (which when i can hear it seems like it's doing some interesting rhythmic stuff) since there's no finger tone, it's all cut out. in terms of the drums, there's a good amount of beater tone on the kick which is nice, the snare's pretty full-sounding, but the cymbals are essentially static. that's affected a lot by the lack of high-end. from an arrangement side, this is pretty much a cover outside of the intro/outro. the melody's the same with very little personalization, the chords are pretty much the same, and i didn't hear much in the background that indicates new countermelodic content. the mastering might have been enough to get through with a really transformative arrangement but there's not one here that i can hear. this needs some more work. the arrangement needs to be intentional and much more present - there needs to be more Sarvoth and less Uematsu in it - and the mastering needs a big lift in the high end in the least, likely all compression needs to be removed, a volume rebalance done, and the mids scooped, then put in a multiband to prevent the cymbals and other instruments from being crushed by the heavy low mid presence of everything. right now, it's hard finding high points that aren't present in the original already. NO

there is nearly 8db headroom on this, with more there if you exclude a single peak. this is years of ignoring basic requests for mastering. i'm tempted to reject this on this grounds only. lots of FMy bells to start us off with the arpeggio. rebecca also provides a lot of space around these, which is an effective way to reinforce the feeling of lonliness she describes. the bells that enter at 0:30 are notably louder than the other instruments, but after they move on, it's a nice soundscape that is indeed reminiscent of snow as she mentioned in her writeup. the glock playing the melodic content after this is a nice touch - having it in a lower register helps it stand out. there's some weird artifacts around 1:10 due to how bells fade out and the borrowed chords used there. 1:29 is a shift in tempo and focus, albeit using mostly the same set of instruments. 2:25 adds in a sustained instrument for the first time, which is a subtle but nice change. there's some flourishes as the track noodles to an ending which are very mechanical and took me out of the vibe. arrangement-wise, there's a lot of original here being manipulated in various ways. it's clear it's FFA throughout so i didn't have a problem there. the instrumentation choices are interesting at first and get pretty boring quickly as it's just the same set of bells over and over again with little changes to the usage except from the time change at 1:29 and the sustained synth at 2:25. from a mastering perspective, i like the level of nuance the wide dynamic range provides - after i boosted the output by 8dba. there's room for light compression here, too, as the variety of bell timbres used would allow for bringing up the quieter parts without losing the dynamic impact of those quieter parts. this is the same comment on every RET track, really. overall this is a great arrangement that chooses mastering decisions i wouldn't have made. i think it's definitely above the bar though and i like the deviation from the standard winds, plectrals, and percs formula that RET's done a lot lately. YES

both originals are great. love how ethereal the opening is. very suspenseful. the alyx riff is immediately recognizable, and the continuing build is great. 0:43's full band sounds great - i love the heavy gating on the guitar to really open up the space around the riffs. i agree that the rhythm parts are very loud and cover some parts, but tbh the extreme emphasis on the rhythm parts combined with the heavy gating felt a lot like something off of one of breaking benjamin's early albums. the solo is pretty long but the track is prevalent with half-life themes.my only nitpick is that the solo kind of wheedles on and then suddenly the track's over. i'd like an ending that feels more intentional. this is a great track and very fun to listen to. excellent work. YES

wow, that's...different. the initial bleeps are an inversion of the marimba part. the swells after it are the string tremelos. 1:15 is an expansion of 0:30ish's bagpipes in the original with the final high note of the first phrase inverted. again, i think, this is a stretch tbh. 1:36 uses that same melodic content pretty clearly for a while. the gliss chords in the background are reminiscent of the bagpipes playing the melody in the original. 2:30ish sounds like an inversion again but it's tenuous at best. the subsequent fm-like blurbs are melodic content from the violin. the chords behind it are around 1:20 onward in the original. so there's quite a bit of source, but it's often academic. regarding the sudden tempo changes, there are a lot of examples in pop and especially indie styles that feature lots of time changes. the #1 example is always bohemian rhapsody, with another example being SOTD's toxicity off the top of my head. i listen to too much prog to really think that the time changes were even notable tbh. should they be there? that's another question, but their existence wasn't troublesome. so i need to look at it as a whole. from a mastering perspective, the bass is way too loud, although admittedly i liked the heavily filtered approach and how fat it was. the track doesn't sound bad per-se, either - really just toning down the bass would make a world of difference there. from an arrangement perspective, though, i do feel this has enough to qualify it for judging, so i'd be looking at overall cohesiveness, instrumentation, and direction. this is where it fails ultimately. looking at instrumentation, there's a bass, drum machine, sweep, a few lead synths, and not much else. each section, as they are, sound pretty hollow since there's few pads being used to flesh it out. in fact, the few times that there IS a pad chording some body to the track is where it sounds the best, like the last minute or so. there's also very little variance in those synths being used, so they get boring pretty quickly. in terms of direction and cohesiveness - there really isn't any. the track doesn't have a shape. there's no real intro, no real prep for the ending before it happens, no highs and lows. without anything for the ear to grab onto, it goes into forgettable territory too quickly. conceptually, i like the approach you've demonstrated here. i love the academic approach to interpreting the original, and while i understand that our arrangements need to demonstrate a dominant usage of source material that is identifiable, i'm perfectly fine with that identification being done with a pencil and paper vs. my ears. that's the case here. the architecture of the work around that interpretation is where you've slipped, and that'll require some more significant rework to rebuild. ultimately this is a cool idea but doesn't demonstrate enough in the execution to pass the bar, nor is it particularly close in the current state. NO

this is a really interesting concept! there's a lot of great stuff going on here. the initial presentation of the arpeggio is just gorgeous. that initial percussion loop - and it is a loop, it's unchanged for >1 minute - is really disappointing because there's so much interesting stuff happening elsewhere, and it just doesn't sound good. same with the sweeper transition, as emu said it's just too loud. the lack of compression overall is notable here too, as it just feels quiet. the track picks up a lot at 1:30 and it's still great in terms of ideas and poor in terms of mastering. at this point i feel like i'm repeating myself, but it still has no bass, the drums are still very loop-oriented (although there's some more work here to mix it up), and it just feels like it's not done. there's a big string section that comes in and does some melodic tutti stuff, and then it starts to fade down. the piano work feels very heavy with how hard the articulation is - i don't know if that's the intention but it's pretty strong and i don't feel like it fits the end of a track as well. there's the bones of a great track here. a bass instrument and some better drum samples (and drum writing) will make a huge difference. Right now it's missing too much. NO

nearly 3dba headroom, if not a lot more outside of a few spikes. well, i like your new instrument libraries! unfortunately, i'm with MW on this one - i didn't hear a lot of new or personalized content at all. there's a lot of machine gun articulations, and the lack of reverb and room management is really glaring and makes the articulations even more egregious. i like the concept of the instrumentation, but this is a concept demo at this point. there's a lot more mastering and arrangement woodshedding needed here. NO

this theme always made me laugh with how perky it is. i agree with MW that there's a lot of generic synths being used. i like the scoopy bass, though, and the track does feel a lot like the original's peppy personality. i liked the big personality shift at 1:00 as well, getting into the minor vibe for the entire middle section. there's a recap that's pretty square and then it ends. i like a lot of the automation to keep the synths interesting, and i like the middle part a lot. i actually don't mind the arrangement at all - i think it's fine albeit not stellar or adding a ton of newness to the theme. i do think it sounds generic and loud. your caustic tracks all have very loud leads which is possibly a side effect of whatever headset you're using to make them. some ideas that would help the track get over the bar for me would be to give it some dynamics besides the obvious transition points, mix up the synths further so they're not all sounding very similar, and tone back the compression that's making it so loud. some more verve in the arrangement would help as well. i think i'm closer on this one than MW, but it's too 2004 to make it right now. NO

suitably funky opening. i like the idea that you're going for here, even if that snare isn't quite snappy enough. immediate head bob. there's a build through 0:39, and even that part is a bigger build to 0:50 to what's clearly the best part of the track. love the altered chord progression, and the macro/micro beat stuff going is very catchy. there's a drop around 1:15, which is good timing. i wish the bass had mixed up what it was doing there, but i still like the overall build. there's a recap of 0:50, and some melodic content layered in, and then a drop at 2:02 as it goes towards the ending. i am gonna echo MW - i think the production is a bit lacking. this track wants a beefy kick and some more brightness, a lot. it does feel cluttered in the mids to a point and it doesn't have the sparkle and snap you'd expect from a track where the beat is a big highlight. but it's fun and i love it! so i'm good with where it is. nice job. YES

i love music plots. thanks for the breakdown. there's lots of fun sound design in the first minute. i appreciate the care taken to have lots of interesting percussion when they come in, since there's not a ton going on elsewhere. the steadily-increasing amount of distortion is a great touch that helps build intensity without just layering in more volume. there's a great build that starts around 3:18 in terms of intensity of timbres. it moves to a great payoff section that is nonetheless probably a bit too loud compared to the rest of the track. the arrangement elements are definitely there. the breakdown is very helpful as they're fragmented, but once you know where to look, you can see them. this is great work. there is a lot of nuance going on. YES

some fun stuttering heavily-filtered stuff to start off with viridian forest. the instrument choices have a pretty lo-fi feel to them, and especially the bass is super heavy in the sub-bass frequencies and does not have much tone to it above that. there's some fun countermelodic content going on, and there is a ton of arrangement going on behind the melody with the bass work and the drums changing it up regularly. the addition of brinstar's content is seamless, really awesome job there, and tbh i didn't even realize it was there until i started looking and then it was very obvious. it just felt like part of the original 1:53 starts a transition point with a heavily-filtered kick again, and there's a build towards a recap of the melodic content and a subtractive outro. 2:36 sounds like a recap of 1:24, but there's some small differences between the two sections. this arrangement is gangbusters. i love it. there's tons of personalization, you're combining tracks from two areas in disparate games that have similar conceptual ideas in a seamless fashion, and you don't let it sit on one thing for any period of time. fantastic job. your synth choice overall is pretty solid (the brinstar arp lead is a bit buzzy for me but that's personal taste) but i did feel the mastering's a bit suspect. there's a lot of sub-bass freqs that should be rolled off - there's a ton of stuff below 40hz that shouldn't be there (in fact <40hz is one of the loudest buckets on a freq analysis). there's very little in the highs (which surprised me since there's a lot of noise sweeps used), so spending some time EQing your leads and percussion especially would be great, and some moderate freq-based compression could help there. i also think that volumizing it a bit would help - the leads are pretty loud compared to the background (especially the aforementioned brinstar arp) so i think dropping that a touch would be very helpful. i was going to pass this solely on the strength of the arrangement. i think ultimately though there's so much to be gained with some pretty straightforward mastering efforts that i'd like to see this take another try. it's so good though! i am super excited to hear it with the sub-bass gone and some volumization done. NO

a bucket list track to remix for me. just such a classic. intro is great and i love the initial hit. i almost wish there was more intro before the melody came in - starting with the melodic content right away almost feels rushed. the melody is handled in a zipper synth that's gliding everywhere and that's fun. the background has some altered chords (notably a major resolution). besides that the initial part is fairly straightforward. there's some fun volumized stuff in the break at 1:02, and a nice sidechained drop before the second section comes back in. i love the customization on the lead here - there's a lot of attention paid to a really fun part of the original, and a ton of soloing around the melody to keep it moving. when the harmonized part of the solo comes in, it's certainly too loud, but it sounds really fun. after this, around 2:15, there's a simpler section, and we get what sounds like copypasta from the beginning for another recap of the melody. there's a drop at 2:55 to take us out via filtro and that's the ballgame. there's some pad holdover that sounds weird at the very end but it's not a huge deal. in terms of negatives, the snare has a bunch of verb baked into it but there's not much that i can hear in the track on it, so it sounds kind of weird. it's also pretty loud. separately, the lead is too loud as well - it completely crushes everything else. i'd think both the snare and leads could come down by at least 3db and still be very clearly audible. overall this is closer to the bar than i initially thought. the first minute is pretty conservative but sounds nice. the second minute or so features a great breakdown and fantastic solo work (admittedly too loud), and then the last minute is copypasta and then a super generic ending. i think it sounds like a track that i want to listen to a lot, though, so i am willing to overlook what i considered to be missteps and give this one a passing grade. YES

love me some SF64. opening piano is pretty obviously fakey - essentially no pianist is using one finger on each hand for something like that. once the chords come in, though, it feels pretty chill and has a nice initial vibe. there's some crunchy notes at 0:37 (the combination of the third in the bass and the b7 in the melody sounds weird because it's a tritone), and there is obvious and continual clipping from roughly where the sax comes in onward for some time - every time the sax bops, it's clipping there by about 0.5db. the saxophone is playing some fun stuff but sounds like it's been recorded on a phone camera - there's just no high end to the tone. the sustained bass section with the piano doing its thing is nice, but the bass feels oppressively loud and super static quickly. the chorus effects on the higher lines for the sax sound neat (like around 1:37), but if anything they emphasize the low-poly recording. after that, there's a recap and then a sudden ending with nothing besides the sax...and 45 seconds of silence...? this is pretty far below the bar still, unfortunately. from an arrangement standpoint, i think what you're doing is fine, but it feels like a demo. there's little going on besides a piano and bass in the background, and while it's got some fun ideas with the style, there really needs to be some filler in there. sustained pads or some synth work would do wonders to make it not feel so empty and to draw away from the lower-quality recording of the sax. the beginning is too rudimentary and the ending is strange, too. even a cymbal ride let to ring behind the sax would help. on the mastering side, there's a ton of clipping, and the sax's micing makes it feel very blah with no body. i think some workshopping would really help this one a lot. NO

this appears to be the 7:47 version, not a shorter one. times don't really match up at all. agree that it's very, very quiet in the opening section at least if not later as well. needs some overall compression to level out the dynamics without taking away the drama created by them. this has a good handle on what makes these tracks fun to listen to. there's a lot of rhythmic work to keep it moving forward, and the group overall sounds solid. i appreciate the melodic content moving around the group. i think there's too much in the lows for at least the first 1:50 and it sounds muddy as a result. mantis's hymn was very surprising in how well it worked in. i think the shift at about 2:15 to no drums was great. very powerful. at 3:35 the dropoff and build is nice, and the different focus on synths there is an interesting adaptation as well. the transition at 4:25 is quite sudden, also. i really liked the sound design around the solo singer's voice, too, although i found her voice to be pitchy (in a negative way, not a folky way). she's also a touch ahead of the orchestra at 5:30. the piano at 5:57 is pretty dull sounding, but i love what it's doing. the build and orchestral blow after that is great, too - big and emotive, and the chimes and brass swells after that are great (feels really Gregson-Williams). guitar at like 7'10" is great - wish it was louder! the ending isn't really sudden but is somewhat unexpected, and the polytonal vocal wandering sounded very strange to me. i called out a ton of nitpicks. i'd love to hear this with less distance between peaks and valleys since you did such a good job with letting your orchestral timbre reflect what should 'sound' loud and soft. that's really the only complaint that isn't very small, though. you did a great job with your ensemble scoring especially. great work. YES

yeah, the samples are pretty rough right off the beginning. the slow attacks on the early strings mean you essentially can't hear them half the time, and since they're not velocity-switched, everything sounds like a loud timbre even when it's obviously volumized way down. the whole opening section is intentionally quiet despite being orchestrated in a fairly full manner, same with the end. remember that your orchestral timbre is influenced by what you're including, and a low number on the gain dial doesn't mean an orchestra sounds quiet - it just means that it has a lower db value. orchestration matters a lot in those instances. the transitional element where you put a V chord with both the 3rd and 4th next to each other is offputting. i would suggest either doing a traditional sus 4-3 or else just sitting on the 4 or the 3, not having both. the big payoff here is the melody playing at 1:18, and i love the eighths leading into it. there's some messy arrangement going on here - the melody is well represented (sounds like you're layering marcato and legato strings to cover the attacks? that sounds weird), but everything else is block chords. the more you can use background instruments as detail rather than a wide brush, the better. the fast articulated strings doing the rhythmic driver aren't able to hack what you're trying to do, either - they just don't have a fast enough attack. the copypasta that MW mentions is obvious, and it's most of the main body of the work. that'd be a no just like that - there needs to be more to differentiate between the two minute-long sections. unfortunately the sample quality issues described are enough to NO this outright. i think the arrangement needs some work as well ultimately. NO

enormous amount of headroom. at least 7dba, realistically a lot more. this needs compression so bad. i just don't get the refusal to apply mastering to tracks. it's not like extreme dynamic ranges make the listening experience better. initial presentation in the flute and harp is pretty. the clarinet right after sounds terrible. no dynamic contrast and an odd chorused tone every time it's used. the part that starts at 0:23 is nice arranging and feels like the main theme's scoring. the subsequent piano parts sound pretty unrealistic though, and the ensemble strings are strangely quiet compared to everything else in terms of their volume vs their timbre. the piano's oddly loud in the right hand and in general doesn't sound like a concert piano. the strings sound like they're playing pretty strong parts but they're somehow under the piano and flute, which is a bit confusing from a soundscape perspective. the melodic content through this section is handled nicely, though, with lots of updates to the overall presentation and the arpeggio being passed between the piano and harp nicely. there's a bit of a transition point at about 2:00 that hands off the melody to the oboe with some robo-piano playing interesting but unrealistic parts lacking in velocitization under it. the bells at 2:25 are nice but pretty loud. there's an ending section that starts about at 2:37 and it's pretty delicate, but it does feel a little janky with that loud clarinet in there again not demonstrating dynamics. this is pretty far below what i've come to expect from you, rebecca. the winds across the board are not handled nicely at all - there's little to no dynamics demonstrated, the spacing added to them emphasizes their unrealistic tone more than humanizes them, and the long sustains you use also highlights how not-real they are. the use of string sustains to fill in chord structures is fine, but your non-idiomatic use of an entire violin section to play long unison sustains again makes it more rather than less obvious that they're not real. a smaller ensemble sound would have felt a lot more realistic since it wouldn't feel like it should be covering up the quieter piano and harp work. the percussion was very uneven as well - there's some beautiful glock with great room verb in the earlier sections but then it's super loud at 2:25 and feels like there's no room sound on it at all. lastly, the overall lack of actually dynamic dynamics is really a problem. nearly everything's the same volume it was introduced at, with no overall shape to the work. it makes it boring, and boring music with unrealistic instruments can't overcome a decent arrangement. it's not all bad of course, you're too good a musician for that. the arrangement has some interesting use of expansion to emphasize some of the fun chord progressions, and you do a nice job with repetition of interesting parts. the melodic content isn't static and visits most of the ensemble at some point. there's some nice subtlety in the tremelo strings near the end. however there's nothing that's so transformative and unique that it really grabs me and makes me really want to listen to it despite the mechanical and mastering flaws. ultimately we judge mixes in a vacuum, not related to a specific artist's skillset or history, so i can't NO this just because you can do so much better. i am however saying that the poor use of dynamics, rough wind samples, and truly absurdly quiet mastering sum up to something that's not there yet. NO

oh, this is really fun. tons of source right off the bat, big fat soundscape. love the super fat sidechaining. i appreciate that there's a lot of changing textures and creative synth work to keep it moving. there's so many crazy shifts everywhere that it's hard to point one that i really like the most, but i think my favorite part is the clicky kick that's throughout. arrangement is great - usually five seconds of melodic content and a five-minute mix is a recipe for copypasta, but this is fresh and creative to the last few seconds. in answer to MW's comments - there's source to 2:25, and then the bassline is the one that was defined earlier by the chords. the detuned bells and hornet synth after that - around 2:50 for example - are playing the melodic content in a different rhythm. the following filtered stuff is the original melodic content's chords arpeggiated differently. 3:16's still got the bass pattern, and the lower saw is again playing the melodic content's arp part with a few extra notes in between. 3:49's link is rhythmic - it's roughly the same rhythm and shape as the melodic content, although a bit different execution. 4:36's is the melodic content stretched out - not sure where the issue was there. it's mastered extremely loud, which is fine, but the constant pressure is admittedly tiring. even the 'breaks' are super loud. in general i look for more dynamic contrast in breaks, but there's nothing technically wrong with how this is handled. what a great track. YES

this is fun to listen! i love the idea. it's really peppy at first, and the electro kick actually adds a ton of character since it makes it feel more like a club performance. the loop at 1:01 and electric guitars really amp it up. the break at 1:33 is well-timed, and the ocarina right after is a fun idea that's reminiscent of the soundtrack. the additive crescendo at 1:58 is again well-done, and it really gets a big blow at 2:30. the chiptunes are a fun way to end it, too, great throwback way to keep it moving. the end is kinda just there which was disappointing after some fun ensemble work. from an arrangement standpoint, i agree that there's not much that's new here. the vox pads, constant instrumentation changes, and added countermelodic content i think do enough to get it over the bar just slightly, though - but man, it'd be awesome to get more out of this arrangement. the gerudo valley theme is so basic and repetitive that three minutes at a fast tempo does not lend itself to wanting to hear it again and again. making that initial riff your own via rhythmic and melodic changes would add so much staying power to this remix. even varying the chord structure for a section (again, very doable since it's a simple vi-IV-V-III7) would help a ton. from a technical standpoint, i agree that the vox are pitchy in several places. a quick autotune on them would help a ton. similarly, there's several places where the acoustic's out of tune as well, like the section from 1:01 to like 1:34, especially the last half. from a mastering standpoint, the track feels super quiet until it suddenly has too much stuff on it and starts pumping hard. this is a sign that the knee of the compressor is just set too high, and the ratio when it engages is way too strong as well. a glance at the freq analysis confirms also that there's very little in the highs throughout despite several instruments that have a ton going on there (the acoustic guitar and the claps especially). i suggest spending some serious time with EQs to really notch in where you want your instruments to sit, go through and re-volumize your instrumentation so that there's not huge shelves of sound for each different section, and then even out the compressor. that'll result in a track that sounds dramatically more professional and produced instead of layered in like it sounds now. a hint - boost your female vocals in the 3k area and your male vocals in the 2.5ish k area, and reduce their fundamentals below 500hz a bit. you'll still get a clear sound from them (from boosting their formants) but they won't be taking up so much of the low mid frequency range. as i said, i'm actually ok with the arrangement (although i'd love more work there). the mastering is pretty rough on this one, though, and it could just be so stellar with some additional time spent. NO

oh, this sounds great right off the bat. the initial theme presentation is excellent - great realization. the gritty hats sound so good. the voice-over is clever (and features the bassline that's been defined by the original, so there's a tenuous connection). the guitar solo sounds so good, and that tapedrop to the filtered digitized theme bits is super fun. 1:29 isn't a tenuous connection - it's the same theme from the beginning, with some eventual half-beat delays to put it on the offbeat. there's tons of theme through at least the glitchy part at 2:15. it gets hard to hear pitches for that bit, but the arpeggio that's essentially the melody is preponderant through the rest of the groove from 2:25 to the end. the tail is longer than it needs to be but it's interesting anyways so i didn't mind. from a mastering perspective, this is really beefy but intentionally so. there's some mild clipping at a few specific spots, mostly between 1:55-2:05, but it truly sounds intentional (or at least not unintentional) so it didn't bother me. i love how fat the bass is throughout, and the specific attention paid to filling in the space of the soundscape consistently with pads and sfx so it doesn't ever sound hollow. arrangement-wise there's no issue here - i hear the 'melody' arpeggio throughout almost the entire track. for certain it doesn't sound like pac-man, but the only times it was even really in doubt about the source is when there was intentional detuning. this is fantastic. can't wait to see it on the site. YES

fun style on this one. this is a great source for this genre. the intro didn't bother me as much as it did for MW, i think. i liked the way you built volume by adding in instruments rather than specifically via volumization changes. the first big orchestral sound we hear at 0:36 has a few oddities - the violas or second violins (whatever that sustained line is) are pretty loud comparatively speaking, and the toms are essentially just attack sounds and then tons of booming noise that should be filtered out so it doesn't sound so muddied. the first real melodic content at 1:06 is great, but the orchestra is playing at full bore for close to 30 seconds at that point, and it needs some more dynamic contrast to make that feel important. i would suggest bringing down the toms there (they're doing fun stuff, it's just too much) and lighten up on the background instrumentation a tad, then bring it back in to give it that boost you're hoping for. the spiccato at 1:29 is fun. by 1:45 i was getting a bit tired of the ongoing driving toms, and lo and behold there's a break right after it for a bit - then we're back into the main body of the arpeggiated section (which sounds copied from the intro). there's another break here - an actual one, and then it picks back up with more of the original copied section as MW pointed out. arrangement-wise, there's some fun ideas here - the initial presentation of the arpeggiated intro is really nice, there's some fun orchestral tom work throughout (although it's too much by the end), and the overall form is not bad. there's a lot that could be improved though. the energy level is too much - having the section between 0:35 and 1:55 be all go, all the time is just exhausting. Separately, there's not much contrast between the quieter parts and the bigger parts. this is mostly a byproduct of having too many instruments doing too many sustains behind the scenes. this isn't a real orchestra - don't layer in instruments just because those players need parts! use just what you need to get what you want and don't use extra fluff to pad it out. that will help drive the bigger parts a lot better since the low/mid energy sections won't be so full and loud. improving the piece's dynamics throughout and using less copypasta will vastly improve the overall product. NO

very low overall volume. several db headroom and even that's generous thanks to a few specific spikes. MW's right, this has a very old-school OCR sound to it. it's certainly a lot of stock sounds that aren't really being EQ'd or personalized. the track sounds very dull as a result, and the samples are all pretty disjointed. some techniques that'd help would be to share verb among the instruments via a send, EQ your individual instruments so they don't sound so bland and missing in highs, and focus on getting a soundscape that feels more cohesive. specifically, your snare and hats feel like they're in a totally different soundscape than the synths and vox stuff. the second half has more verve, but it does also still feel pretty stock in terms of synth choice. in terms of arrangement - you've got some fun ideas! the brassy synth in the second half has some fun stuff going on particularly, i really liked that. what MW said about the whole track needing more uniqueness throughout is true though - it feels like two minutes of looped concept stuff and then two minutes of a different concept looped. i know it isn't really looped, there's some differences in there, but it doesn't feel different, and so it gets stale very fast. this needs some workshopping. interested in hearing what comes out on the other side. NO