prophetik music

8db headroom on this one, lol. that's silly. proper compression is really, really needed on this track. there's way too much dynamic contrast overall once you get it loud enough too. let's take a minute and talk about pronunciation, especially considering how many versions there are out there of this song for reference. there is a significant difference in how you pronounce your vowels especially as compared to every other game-audio version out there. as a whole, your e is too wide, your u is too closed, and you sit on your nonpitched consonants (like g) too long, causing them to disrupt the flow a bit. this isn't enough to make me fail it on that alone - they're still clear, your tone is nice, and i like the characterization you give it (for example, on the first syllable of 'renmiri') - but it's indicative of not a ton of time studying the source and preparing to say these words. go and check out the comments to "the place we knew" sometime and see how people react to even a really solid presentation of japanese lyrics and you'll understand why i think it's critical to really do your best to nail this for the best reception. from a technique side, focus on keeping your teeth apart and generating a round, open sound. singing with your first knuckle on each first finger a bit between your teeth from the outside (fish mouth!) and trying to keep your mouth open (maybe not quite a perfect 'O' the whole time, but as much as you can!) will dramatically improve the roundness of your tone, since it prevents you from closing up mouth and collapsing your throat. you do a much better job with support on this track than others i've heard from you, so you've definitely got the air to really make the vocals something special. back to the arrangement: i really enjoy the attention paid to the backing track throughout. it'd be easy to write it off as minimal, but there's a lot of nuance here. plus, how often do you get to really play around with all those interesting and well-sampled percussion instruments? i liked the crotales at 2:02 especially. the pad that was added around 2:10 is nice too. i wasn't as interested in the loss of attention to the text at 2:20 however - your pronunciation was consistent until then, which matters when it's so exposed. another misstep is the flat note on the major 6th at 2:37 - that needed some lift in post (or a more confident attempt punched in). the ending is really nice - i really liked the last "Hasatekanae". there's some resonance on the first syllable of the last word ("kutamae") causing it to spike up, but the rest is a very atmospheric and nuanced fade. overall - the arrangement really is fun to listen to, and you do a great job in terms of pitch and flow. i wasn't a fan of the exacerbated vowels, as i mentioned, and i found your tone to be clear but tight. the performance is likely passable however if it wasn't for the mastering issues. even beyond the huge headroom, the utter lack of compression really, really hurts this track as it prevents any of the nuance from shining through without a hand on the speaker volume to allow you to hear the whole thing. fix the mastering (which i think will require more work than a conditional would cover for rebecca) and this is above the bar. another take on the vox and this is an insta-yes from me. NO 1/27 edit: because some other judges brought it up, i thought i'd clarify. i don't speak japanese, and i don't know the words over-well. what i do know is that many basic rules of 'how to sing letters' aren't being followed, and i found it grating. stuff like vowels being the wrong shape or dwelling on non-pitched consonants are often the result of not concentrating on a good sound and letting regional accents take over more than anything. all that said, though, i am not failing this because she isn't a classically-trained singer, although the lack of technique i felt hurt the piece. i no'd it because it's a quiet track that has zero compression and is begging for some post, and i don't think that rebecca has demonstrated enough mastering technique on her own to be able to handle it via conditional. 6/10 edit: this was brightened up considerably and the dynamic contrast isn't nearly so troublesome. the voice is probably too loud over the background right now, but this feels much more like a live performance in person and i like it. call this a YES from me.

i agree with rexy that the source fits this style really well. the original was already kind of doing that funk-house style, with a really present kit and a bop band behind it, and this definitely takes it farther down the euro road with the chord extensions you're hinting at in the guitar, combined with the acoustic bass and disco vibe. i also agree that there's just way too much sampled content in here. it's so busy, and that's saying something coming from me! the sampled sections clearly aren't in the same level of swing so there's conflicting off-beats, and the sampled content drags the overall fidelity of the track. i did like what the bass was playing, and felt that helped move it along. i'd recommend some space in there to let the instrument 'breathe' a bit. your groove got pretty dry pretty quick when it essentially played the same pattern for three minutes, so starting somewhere less full of notes and expanding throughout the track will help quite a bit, i think. lastly, while i really liked what the acoustic guitar was playing, it was so choppy due to whatever slicer you used to adjust the tempo that it sounds really disjointed. i really wanted it to speak cleaner and it just wouldn't. speaking of mastering, i found the kit as a whole to sound like it was in an entirely different soundscape than the rest of the track. it was very present and wide (the shaker in the right ear was really irritating maybe halfway through), and the continued shifting of the rest of the track's level of fidelity as compared to the static drums was really distracting. you can definitely do some work to volumize the rest of the instruments to level them out. there's definitely some fun moments in here. i'd love to hear more of the EP solo at 2:00, and i enjoyed the panned EP solos before that. i also overall enjoyed the presentation of the melody, and while more variation there would have been good, it was fun. i just can't however get past the constant sampling and lackluster mastering. part of french house is that the mastering really sparkles, which helps the common phaser effects and sampled old disco track bits shine through in spite of their age. i don't get that feeling here and it really makes for a track that isn't where it needs to be to pass. NO

ok, i love your concept. super creative idea and i like the touches of how it influenced your remixing (like the sweeper wave you've got throughout). i also like that you just went for some interesting ways to keep it different, like bringing in the dance piano and going HAM on it in the second half (especially from 3:39 onward). i think that you ran into some limitations of the synth in that section in the piano since there's some machine-gun effect going on there, but it's still fun. i found the drum fills notably to be pretty similar throughout, which was offputting when there wasn't consistently a cymbal crash or some other beat-1 terminator at the end (like 3:25). that emphasized the drum-machine aspect of your sound software. working around that somehow would have been a positive. from the mastering side, the track was cranked pretty hard (i saw it clipping by nearly 1.5db in some places). i did like the meaty kick throughout. there was definitely some weird balance however. the keys really dominated when they came in in stacked chords at 3:40, for example, and through most of the middle of the track, the middle synths are louder than the melodic content. this is, honestly, a pretty good job considering the software limitations. if it's possible to export stems of this, having someone on a real machine (or even yourself!) mastering this in a DAW that allows for more flexibility would be a huge win. there's a few times i really wasn't into the arrangement here or there, but really the main thing influencing my vote is the mastering. i'd say that this is pretty close as-is, and a bit of attention to the details in the arrangement and mastering will really make for a great, fun, front-page track. NO

this track feels like something out of stellaris to me. the wide pads and light arpeggiated synths are so endemic to that soundtrack. arrangement-wise, i liked how you expanded the initial guitar arpeggiated chord and explored that some more. switching the time signature gave you a lot more room to explore some of those sustained tones and i like that you did. i was surprised though that at 2:24 that you chose to keep the instrumentation the same going into the double-time section, as that was a perfect opportunity to mix it up a bit. i thought the same drums/arp/bass sounds there started to get stale (drums most of all). i also wasn't a fan of the end of the track, since it just sort of ended without any real process there. from a mastering perspective, i thought that the drums overall were pretty loud - the snare snap was just really bright the whole way through in a fairly dull soundscape - and the bass was overly muddled. that made it hard to hear what was going on at 3:13. beyond that, the entire track was quiet - i show nearly 2db of headroom throughout. as a whole, i might sound like i disliked the track a lot, but that's not the case. i actually really liked the vibe of it, which was very spacey and featured those fun wide pads i mentioned earlier. i think there's some simple fixes that'd really improve the overall product here - a better ending, some cleaner and louder mastering, and maybe adjusting some of the instrumentation in the double-time section would all really help the overall feel of the track. NO

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source was not in the slightest what i expected drums feel a bit dry (the whole thing feels a touch dry), and the bass is quiet. production critiques done. arrangement comments: the primary form of arrangement done here is what's done to replicate the melody in the strings and keys. some of what worked in a chippy format doesn't work here (2:25 shows that pretty well, what worked with limited chord background doesn't work with a full band behind you every time), but as a whole this is a solid arrangement that is interesting and passes the melody around consistently while keeping the feel going. it isn't repetitive or long enough to get boring. the drum fills are uninspired but enough to keep things moving along. this one's easy. YES

oh, wow, this is really a powerful take on this track. there's so much energy and drive coming from this. i really like your choices of orchestration to keep that energy driving forward. it's too bad it's so short - when you trim out silences, it's about 1:37 long, which isn't unprecedented but it's also highly uncommon. here's the relevant part of the standards: with that in mind, i don't think this is long enough to convey the arrangement. here's why: the arrangement is - incredibly, considering the length of the entire track - repetitive. there's 30 seconds of the initial kick lead to the horn riffs, ~15 seconds of essentially an orchestral crescendo, and then we're back to the kick lead into either horn rips or choir punches. there's also about 20 seconds of the chord progression at the end as an outro that's not really tied into the original track at all from what i can hear in terms of orchestration - it uses an organ but it's a different stop from the sound of it, and it isn't effected the same way. i'm not saying that it's not represented interestingly enough, though! the overall package is exciting and entertaining. i agree with rexy that it's fairly robotic, and there's some volumization that could be done to it to balance it more, but it's a fun listen and i like it. my problem is that it's just so short and yet it goes absolutely nowhere. ultimately - this is too short to really showcase an arrangement. i agree that if it was 3 minutes of this it'd get annoying a minute into it, but realistically you just aren't showing enough material to determine if it's actually an arrangement or not here. it needs more content. NO

from a production standpoint, i had to go through several sets of audio options before i found something that actually voiced your sub-bass tones properly. while that's fun, i feel like there's a lot missing in this track without those tones (it's even more empty without them), so having something that the majority of audio options can't represent is a problem in my book. beyond that, i'd argue that the main body of the track is undercompressed, in that the kick caused the mix to go 1.2db over every time it hits. adding some compression without losing the pretty nice dynamics and soundscape that you lay out is a must. i definitely don't feel that the kick is too loud, but there's room to adjust the balance so that it doesn't cause distortion. further compression, as you'd see in youtube or other media, would only emphasize this distortion more. from an arrangement perspective, i really liked the idea of ignoring the melody entirely, as the arpeggio is a clear and representative part of the source. the track's immediately recognizable, although i wouldn't complain if there was some melodic material in there. i agree with rexy though that it simply doesn't do anything. it's fun to hear it fade in and out, but there needs to be some level of transformation in order to call it 'arrangement'. i don't see that here. there is a conflicting note at 1:28 that's super distracting as well. i can't tell if it's the sub-bass playing two notes simultaneously, or just a result of the stutter synth being low, but it's obnoxious with the bass turned up (to hear those low tones in the first place). ultimately, although the track is fun to listen to, there's some issues on both the production and arrangement side that cause this to miss muster. i don't think it'd be difficult to add in some more melodic content in an arranged fashion to make this more your own, or to fix the mastering so it doesn't peak constantly, and that'll make a better track overall as a result. NO

ima start you off with this: son you shut your mouth or so help me! what a silly fun opening. i definitely feel the talk-show band feel. i love the goofy sfx you throw in there as well. i enjoy the big drum sound and the really in-your-face bass sound - i can't believe that any part of that bass is boo bass, but at least it's thematically relevant. my complaint, as it is, is that it's real, real short. it's essentially through the melody twice with some goofball noise effects thrown in before each time through. from an arrangement perspective, too, while there's some interesting application, it's essentially note-for-note with the original. i think we just can't count this on that perspective. there really needs to be more transformation applied to this, be it via some changes to the melody line, altered chords, time sigs...anything to say it's yours and not just koji with drums. i can't count the sound effects and other weirdo stuff that gives this track charm, either, because they're not source material unfortunately. unfortunately, while this is an entertaining track, i can't vote for it. the arrangement is essentially nonexistent. another take on the lead guitars changing around some of the melodic line, or some more creativity in how you're adapting this track, and this is a quick yes vote from me. NO

i struggled for a few listens to really get the hang of the five-bar 4/4 phrase you're using. for judge reference, here's what it is. note just how janky this is. this is for two main reasons: you're still using the leading motion in the baseline (G-A-Bb, Bb-C), but you're using them in uncomfortable places. the nature of leading motion is to move TO somewhere, and having it at the beginning or middle of a bar is very disconcerting from an ear perspective. you start by reinforcing the beat, to a point, but then you essentially don't have a downbeat for the last half. the first 12 beats are on-beat, and everything after that is on the upbeat. either of these by themselves would be fine, but this sounds super weird in context - it essentially feels like you drop a half-beat in the middle of it somewhere. i don't even care about the 5-bar phrases, like rexy mentioned. the offbeats sound straight-up wrong, and it prevents me from sitting into the groove. it's exacerbated at 0:54 when you bring in the higher synth - which is still in 3/4! - layered on top of your five-bar 4/4 phrase. this is real strange too because 5-bar phrases of 4/4 will only rarely sync up with a repeated 3-beat phrase. and this is exacerbated even further because you don't make enough distinction between each 5-bar instance. so it's impossible to hear where you 'are' in each phrase. essentially it sounds really confused the entire time, like it's limping or something. and it's real difficult to listen to as a result. this doesn't take into account that the arrangement is simple if not too little. there's not enough personalization to the melody to really call it more than dumping in the theme on top of the backgrounds as it was in the original. beyond that, i found the soundscape repetitive at best, as there's essentially four or five synths used for the entire track with what sounded like two fills - one with snares and one with a ride hit. when the kick comes in for real and isn't being low-passed, the kick sounds ok but the drums as a whole don't sound quite as punchy as i'd expect. i think some of that comes from how much presence the bass instrument has - i really think dialing that back a touch and notching the kick in better into the low end would make a big difference. i really wasn't feeling this one. the arrangement was lackluster, the 5-bar background really turned me off (if that wasn't obvious), and the soundscape got really tired pretty quickly. my suggestion is to tear this back to the bolts and find a fresh and clear way to reinforce your odd phrase length, since that's the real unique thing about this arrangement. once you've got that, you can build up a background that fits that (rather than just repeats the same thing over and over). until this, this doesn't reach the bar. NO

this is short and sweet, and does a great job giving an a capella source body and weight. the other judges have said mostly what i feel, but i particularly appreciated the care taken to vary up the performance in each part, as well as from an arrangement perspective varying up the voices and what they're doing. that kept it from getting boring or repetitive. this has a real ES Posthumus feel to it at 0:49 and again at 2:01, which is a good thing (for me at least!). if i have to nitpick anything, it's that the nonstandard chords used in the pads (at, for example 0:33) don't contribute to a forward motion but instead kind of bog it down a bit. those sections do provide contrast to the more upbeat sections however. this is an easy vote. YES

some real beauty-and-the-beast feel there at the very beginning. some fun orchestration right off the bat. the initial presentation of the theme is fairly straightforward, more of a transcription or cover than an arrangement. i wasn't a huge fan of the overly-articulated melody at 0:37 as it didn't sound very realistic at all - less a staccato or marcato than a clear articulation deficiency in the sample set. if your samples can't do what you want them to do, you probably shouldn't be featuring them as the lead instrument without at least some support in the form of other instruments. in this case, a xylophone, glockenspiel, or some upper reeds would have provided punch so you didn't need to focus on a hard articulation as much. i liked the step back at 1:00. additionally, the voices at 1:14 were surprisingly functional, but there's what sounds like a mistake at 1:16 where one note is a sixteenth late, and the note overlaps as a result. 1:23 has another note spacing issue that sounds a bit funky. those combine to make the vox section go from "hey, that's pretty cool!" to "this sounds messy". at the end of the vox section, i started noticing that the brass 3-3-2 pattern had been playing for a while, so it dropping out at 1:43 was welcome. the transition section through 2:17 was good, and the surprise jump in dynamics at 2:17 was just in time. i did notice the dissonance at 2:11, which sounded intentional but a bit clumsy in execution. usually if you're going to use a third inversion chord (major 7th on the bottom, major chord over top), there's a bit more precedent for it than just tossing it in. here it's a perfectly serviceable dominant chord, but it sounds awkward due to not being used a few times and instead just the once. at 2:17, we're back to the theme being restated once through and half of it with some harmony, and then we're done. so a pretty short and very safe arrangement, clocking in at just under three minutes. i think the arrangement's enough, and while i wasn't a huge fan of the use of the brass, i don't think it's enough to hold it back. production was fine overall - there's a few sections where one ear is favored over the other, but an orchestral track requires panning, and it's not like instruments would move mid-song to balance that out. if that one goofy note at 1:16 is fixed, this is a pass from me. this is simple enough that a conditional can cover it. YES (conditional on fixing the vox mistake at 1:16) edit: since the project files are gone, this is unfortunately now a NO

this track has so much more identity to it now compared to before. the removal of some of the repetition and addition of more character in the background and percussion is great. an example of how you've reinforced this from start to finish is the consistent use of acciaccatura in the melody line (this is the accented delayed stepwise motion at the end of each phrase). using it throughout and then echoing it in the inverse in the rhythm of that great arpeggio synth that sneaks in around 3:30ish is a great payoff moment. i don't know if you did it on purpose but they dovetail really well together and i love that. this one's easy. YES

i haven't had a chance to play nier automata but it's on the list for sure - it looks really interesting.

i really like the big whooshy pads and arp at the beginning, and the drums at 0:45 set a really nice mood here. i noticed that the drums repeat early, but i figured you're setting a groove that you'll work with later... ...and then, like, nothing changed for three minutes. as rexy said, you essentially are covering the source. there's some fun synth work on the melody, and there's some great tooling with the transitions from section to section, but it's a cover - and a repetitious one, because the drums are the same the whole time! it's particularly troublesome to hear this when there's such a great soundscape developed that just isn't getting used. you did a great job making a track that sounds great and has a lot of body to the soundscape. from a suggestion standpoint, there's a lot of straightforward ways to add arrangement in a functional way. varying the chord structure is a common and easy one, but even adding your own characterization to the melody (so it's not the exact same rhythm and notes as the original) would help a ton. original sections, a solo section, some exploratory work into the melodic progression...anything to give it something new, to put your stamp on it. ultimately, the lack of true arrangement means that there's just not enough here to call front page material. NO

arrangement wise, i loved what you had! i heard the FFXIII use of borrowed chords right away. there's a ton of power to this arrangement and it isn't just max-velocity orchestra soundfont on every note, which is appreciated. it just didn't have enough OST. there's some super-interesting new stuff that i enjoyed, and there's several sections that sounded like they were from the original but i couldn't place (like at 2:00 and a bit later at 3:07) which implies they're just borrowing concepts but not actual melodic content from the original. ultimately, the solid production and energetic arrangement make for a great whole, but it's not enough original to pass muster here. add some source (even a different source!) and it's an insta-yes for me. NO

i'll take you one step farther, rexy - the arrangement isn't underwhelming, it's...kind of boring. it's essentially a playthrough of both tracks, and then it ends (with less than 2:30 of real content). i'd argue that the orchestration isn't even particularly grabbing, either - it's a lot of tutti on the melody with a single bassline/background part, and that's about it. there's a little sustained pad backgrounds in the 1:00 area and that's about it. even the more energetic Hidden Village section is really tedious-sounding thanks to that really poorly-used harpsichord (of all the clavicymbalum family of instruments, the harpsichord relies on the pedal the most for it's unique sound!), and it just has machine-gun quality that set my teeth on edge right away. i might sound like i think it's terrible, and that's not the case. the sweeping strings on the melody are very evocative in the first half, and there's some interesting percussion which definitely would benefit from some reduction of boom/sustain on them (eq does wonders to orchestral toms!). but the arrangement is just very uninspired, and the use of samples doesn't help much. NO

i think it's just an E in the staff, well within a coloratura's range. i think i heard a high Db above the staff in this, and i'd expect a coloratura to be able to sing a 2.25ish octave range, which is in the A-Bb range. so actually pretty well rendered considering the dramatic change in timbre that most big-voiced sopranos have down lower as they get into their chest more. i'll start with arrangement. from the negative side, there's something weird at 3:52 in the keys, and there's some more mess a few seconds later in the reeds. it also just sort of ends. beyond that, though, this is some of rebecca's best scoring, and the care taken with that synth voice is fantastic. i agree that it needs some concert hall verb (the whole thing is a touch dry) to make it more believable and flatten out the uncanny valley, but overall this is delightful. about the pops: 0:03 is just low pizz. i'm guessing that the sampler that rebecca's using uses a messy pizz attack (which is common), and since pizz has a lot more noise to it than normal notes it sounds a bit strange that low. 0:36 is real hard to hear. 1:35 has nothing that i can hear. maybe more of the attack from the plucked strings? 1:49's is so slight that i'm thinking it's also string noise. there does sound like there's something crunchy there but i can't place it. this sounds more like a compression artifact but this is a wav. wonder if it's a render error? it's very minimal. 2:06 has nothing i can hear. 3:15's is string attack, more pizz. 3:55 has something audible in the right ear. those reeds are real out of tune - is that a live instrument? sounds like someone donked the mic when it had a low-cut on. 3:56's got nothing i can hear. there's nothing here that's causing me to say "no way". this is solid. excellent work. YES

what an elegant arrangement, jerome. i fully expected to go into this complaining about too much source and not enough arrangement with that murderer's row of soundtracks, but this was delightful! there's a ton of really beautiful arrangement here, with some really pleasant nuance in how you've applied it to an intentionally sparse soundscape. i hear elements of klaus badelt (first pirates movie soundtrack) and some of zimmer's earlier stuff like atlantis in how you've applied instrumentation. 1:15 is stellar from a scoring standpoint and pleasing from an application standpoint. going from that, i do feel that there's a few parts that are too sparse and are calling for both more scoring background and better samples. 2:09 is screaming for a meaty full-orchestra background to a better brass sample, and so is 2:42. the consistent shift in ensemble is great, though, and it continues to showcase an eye for ear-catching timbres. great work through and through. i'm gonna call out MW and say that there's zero dissonance that isn't intentional and well-placed. the section at 3:25 is clumsy in the melody, but the bassline walking up is an intentional decision to add some stress to an active melody that otherwise is going nowhere. i also didn't feel that there were any awkward key changes - i found the shift at 2:25 to be a refreshing break from a style that would quickly get tiresome if repeated (also, it's the same key!), and 2:47 was strong but actually pretty well executed i thought. that said, i can see why that one would be polarizing since it's a dramatic shift in style that maybe needed a measure or two more of breathing room to make more sense. the mastering on this is poor at best, unfortunately. the panning issue and EQ issues are notable even on a soundbar. i'm guessing your headphones don't have much bass response - or, more likely, that you're using studio monitors without a sub - and it shows. imo this really holds the track back to the point that i don't consider it passable, but i do also consider it to be by far the easiest thing to fix! you've got the hard parts down. if this comes back with less aggressive panning and more sane EQing it's an instapass in my book. NO

nitpick: 7/4, not 7/8, since the tempo of this is pretty fast so it's a quarter note that's being dropped. can't help it =D this is a great take on one of many great themes in FF7. it's interesting because i'd say it actually has less energy than the original, but not like that's a bad thing - the leads feel slow compared to the very fast beats, which is a great contrast and presents the melody in a much less frenetic way than other remixes of this tune use. i love the feel with four on the floor at 2:43 during that build part. it gives a great grounded feel that the chorus really gets power from. i do however agree with MW that the song essentially goes on a bit too long. it probably could benefit from some repetition being trimmed from the restatement of the melody in the saw at around 3:00. minor nitpicks at best. this is an easy vote. YES

this definitely has a Pendulum feel in the drums and leveling. i think the cymbals are too loud - Pendulum is notorious for every drum being just sounding like it's snare and drum only, and that's for a reason - cymbals are grating after a while. i don't mind the drums being a bit louder, and i don't mind the mixup on the beats that you've added. i do wish the kick had more balls - it's got a fairly muted beater sound, and it would be great if it had more treble on that beater sound combined with more meat in the really low freqs to let it kick harder. i agree with MW that the bass instrument is too quiet, and also that it doesn't have enough bass in it. it's mostly high. the arrangement is entertaining, and it's very energetic. i still don't dig the synth guitars but they definitely settle into the mix better than they did before. the ending's pretty blah after so much drive throughout, but as a whole it's fine. i'm a bit torn here. i'd like to see what the other judges say before i make my decision. i feel like the mastering pulls this down a bit, but it's still a fun take on the theme, and we don't expect everyone to sound like a pro d&b group. edit: i've let this one percolate long enough. i really don't think that this is at a level enough to pass the bar on the mastering side. i do think that the arrangement works when you consider pendulum's style (pretty repetitive), but i recognize that it is fairly repetitive even when considering that. i'm going to say that this is a no but pretty close...another pass on the mastering and a bit of additional creativity in the arrangement will put this over the bar. NO

this feels really overcompressed. no one else got that? i got through the intro and my ears were already tired. it feels really mid-heavy, and everything sounds muffled. a great example is the piano at 2:00 - i can barely hear it, and it's breathing heavily with the kick too, and then that descending M7 motif just crushes it out of existence. the thick mastering is unfortunate because there's a really fun synthwave vibe going on around 2:20 onward. it's just so dense still. every new instrument is interesting, but it's just layered on everything that was already there. it sounds like you did a super-hard knee on the compressor and just put everything at the same volume. the mastering's still holding this one back for me. the arrangement is safe but not much, and so it's not going to carry lackluster production. synthwave needs to have that dark yet sparkling feel to undergird the repetitive nature of the bass and beat, and this just doesn't have that. it's just heavy. NO

i remember this one! the dystopian elevator music description fits this one even more, actually. i see no problems with the arrangement, there's creativity in the presentation of the melody, it doesn't clip, and there's variation in the track so it's unique throughout despite using essentially the same few instruments. there's a lot more going on during the track as well. i still don't think it's vaporwave - it's still essentially really out-there nu-jazz - but there's so much silliness with timbres and audio clips that it comes out on the other side of bad-weird to be strangely charming. there's arguably not a lot of procession or forward drive, but the style - vaporwave or nu-jazz or Space Jam or whatever you want to call it - doesn't seem to call for it either. ultimately if that's the hold-up i think it's not enough to keep it back. if this was on an OST for a game, there'd be someone out there who said that this is their favorite track. i'm calling this a yes. will i ever listen to it again? probably not. but it does what we said remixes are supposed to do, and i am not going to let my personal opinions influence it. YES 11/19 edit: ＶＡＰＯＲＷＡＶＥ

hey, what a fun take! this passes my bar easily. i particularly like the vocal treatment - while a few times there's some strains or odd scoops that needed some post lovin', i think it sounds great within the mix and is well-suited to the singer's vocal range and style. i agree with NutS that the background is little more than a bucket for the vocals and sax parts, but that's ok in this style, i think. it's well-executed and doesn't get in the way of the parts that we showed up to listen to, which is all it needed to do. some suggestions to subversiveasset, one saxophonist to another: one thing that'd help from a recording perspective is to crank down your gain on your mic and really play a lot louder. there's several times repeatedly where your tone is soft and subtle, which is great for some styles, but this needs a really wailing timbre which only comes from more air behind your stack. the lick at :51 and others is a great example - it sounds like you played it real quiet and controlled, and then it has to really be cranked up to fit volume-wise, but then it feels odd next to the other instruments which have more body. it'll also give those articulations more bite. lastly - don't be afraid to run your parts through pitch correction, just like a singer. the low end of the upper octave (F-D w/ octave key) is really sharp, and it shows on some of your runs through there. it'll let you focus more on tone and fingerings, and less on perfect embouchure adjustments for those runs. if i'm nitpicking, i'm pointing out that a major seventh up is a huuuuge jump for a singer, especially a male singer going from chest voice to mixed (4:16). combined with a glottal stop (the g in -getting) makes that a pretty hard play, so i'll call that sub-optimal writing. also the entire track has a ton of headroom and can be pushed up easily. as a whole, though, this is a great fun track that features some excellent guest performances. nice work to all involved. YES

this is a notably mechanically inconsistent track from you, rebecca. your strength has always been creating a really nice, lush, rich soundscape, and you do none of that here. the strings are robotic from the get-go, the brass are poorly balanced and awkwardly implemented, and the entire arrangement goes essentially nowhere. there's some clever turns of phrase and repetition to make it not straight in time with the original, but there's nowhere near enough to carry the low sample quality. this isn't good enough in this state, unfortunately. NO