prophetik music

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

most cities are totally hosed right now when it comes to postage delivery. it'll get there probably =)

this presents pretty quickly, like jive said. we're through several layers of intro and to the melody by under 40 seconds into the song. i'd encourage you to pace yourself a bit more - you said a lot right up front, and maybe either spreading that out a bit more or moving some of those parts to later in the song would let the track breathe a bit from a musical content perspective. separately, i also agree that overall everything's got too much lows on it, and it means that a lot of content is getting layered over instead of having its own window to speak clearly. i personally really like overly-complex EDM, and in general prefer more stuff vs less, but this is messy for most of the time when everything's playing together. 2:17 is a good example - i can hear at least six distinct lines, and there's pieces of more, and they're all in the same frequency windows. this needs an EQ pass and probably also some reflection on if you can pull out some of the extras, allowing what's left to speak clearer and be more impactful. right now it's not there yet. NO

what a fun original track! right away there's an interesting approach taken in your arrangement, lots of lush orchestra and bells. the heavy swell on the string sustains is real off-putting, but the rest of the scoring is pretty if simple. the transition at 1:00 is nice since it gives the mix a bit of a different feel to let it breathe. the choice of using some leading tones in the piano at 1:24 is likely what jive's talking about, and i agree it sounds kinda funky because of how sustains work, but it's not the worst. i'd want it to have been prepped in other instruments ahead of time to avoid that. speaking of funky notes, there's some weird notes in the low brass at 2:01, and then more noticeably at 2:07 and at 2:10 (those are straight-up wrong notes). the ending is a good recap and ends with some more delicate piano work. overall i agree with jive that production is ok, and that there isn't much arrangement aside from realizing the work in an orchestral ensemble (not to take away from that). it's quite mechanical and the instruments aren't great, notably the leads sound pretty low-quality, but the concept is nicely handled. i don't think this is on the level of passing but it's a great start. adding in more dynamics (that aren't just more or less instruments), some more humanization on the leads especially, and then giving it a little personalization in terms of chord progressions, melodic variance, more harmonies - this would all benefit the final version. even some of that would probably be enough to get this to pass. NO

remixers: prophetik music, PhrygianFingers name: The Slums of Traverse game: kingdom hearts source: 'traverse town' artist comments: zach and i recorded this track over christmas break in 2007 according to my file dates. we were goofing around with some music software one evening and he started playing the traverse theme in a minor key. i recognized it and pulled out my sax, and we recorded it in one take. due to some software limitations at the time, the keyboard midi data was in reason 3 (!!!), and we exported that and dropped the wav of my sax into FL and mastered it there. we had been meaning to come back to it for years and it just never became a thing. a little while later, i got married and moved away, and we fell out of touch. imagine my surprise when i happened across this arrangement on a fan tumblr account last year with tens of thousands of plays, and tons of comments about how much they enjoyed it! that brought it back into the front of my memory, and i went looking for the files in my (far too large) collection of old hard drives but couldn't find it. time passed and another forum-goer who i used to interact with a bunch 10+ years ago messaged to say hello, and ask what happened to this track. well, i went looking again, and this time i found my original files. i asked around for someone to help extract the midi data, and then did some crunching in the keyboard part to fix some sour notes and odd articulations. and here we are! probably not the first 13-year remix in the history of the site, but still a fun journey. from a mechanical standpoint, this uses komplete for the keyboards, some melodyne 6 studio to fix a few notes in the sax part, and FL 20 as the DAW. i tried to keep as much of the ensemble feel as possible in the keys, which allows for some lilt in the tempo without quantizing out what made the piano part so organic and fun. looking forward to hearing what people think. source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDizdSZB2Gw

wow. what a great celebration of skill and quality musicianship. this is a superb effort. this checks all my boxes. the transitions are delicately handled, the realizations are scaled well for the ensemble, the performances are excellent, and the orchestration is nuanced and enjoyable. there's really some excellently-voiced parts in here, probably my favorite is the realization of "crossing those hills", which uses ongoing movement in the supporting parts alongside floating choral sustains to simulate motion - which is a great example of story influencing the musical setting, since this music is used on the main map in FF9. if i'm going to complain about anything besides the little pops that emunator mentioned, it's that we don't sit anywhere long enough to really dig into it, and by extension the ending is a little abrupt for a 7:45 track. but these are nitpicks. i do think that the pops should be fixed (should be easy, either automate some silence there or delete the broken waveform bit by removing the last ms or so on those tracks), but this is a superlative work that i can't wait to see on the site. CONDITIONAL on removal of pops. update 6/7 - based on LT's comments, i will change this to a YES. i do want the pops at least silenced if possible before shipping but it's not enough to prevent it from being posted IMO.

oh, great source choice, and great genre choice for the remix. i really love the vibe throughout this track. it's got the high-energy presentation combined with chilled synths that you'd expect from liquid dnb, and faseeh does a great job mixing in the guitar elements without losing that grounding. there's source throughout and it's well-handled each time it comes up. i agree with emunator that a higher-compression mix wouldn't have been a bad thing, but overall this is just a rubber stamp for a great track. rubber stamp go. nice work. YES

oh, what a fun intro. guitars sound real fun on the intro as well. i agree with jive that the drums are pretty punchy/overcompressed, but i can hear what they're doing without too much trouble. i do agree that the bass parts are pretty much sub only and you're not getting much attack throughout, and the result is that it's a bit muddy in the full band parts. vox parts sound great. if i'm pointing out anything it's that the vox parts at the very end could use some tuning from the center of the note - the lower parts sound slightly flat compared to her singing up higher (honestly beautiful tone on those high parts, it's so difficult to keep head voice clear like that while trying to keep it straight-tone). the 'wrong note' that is being called out isn't wrong at all, it's just later in the original track. the major 6 that sounds 'wrong' (comes up at 1:07 as well as other places) is the section from 0:57-1:04 in the source track. the song fits better into a dorian than a minor, given that there's a ton of g naturals and a heavy emphasis on b throughout, plus the E major chords used on cadences sound real borrowed next to the G major and e minors used elsewhere. anyways, lots of nerd talk to say that an F# in this song is in keeping with the original and it's not wrong. after several listen-throughs i'm not hearing any crunchy notes. this is a great track. there's definitely some mastering tweaks that could make it better but i think this is well-handled and approachable. excellent work. YES

the intro does a nice job setting up the feel. i liked the switch between duple and triple meter, and the increasing tempo was well handled. the break at 1:12 is well-timed, and the main body of the piece that happens right after is great. i liked the solo section as well, as it didn't carry on too long and then immediately got back to the melodic content. the ending section at 2:55 was also fun and a good way to help the track wrap. from a mastering perspective, this sounds fine. it's a bit bass-heavy and it's hard to hear the drums in some areas but overall it does a good job conveying what you're going for. this is a solid track. nice work. YES

what a thoroughly wretched original track, at least as represented in the youtube link. that wiggle synth is terrible. this starts with some interesting strings work, which while creatively applied unfortunately don't mask that the samples aren't suited for the part writing. once everything comes in it's a little more covered up which is good. once the entire group comes in at 1:14, it's a fun sound, but it's also dramatically louder (ie. lacking compression throughout) and pretty muddy, especially on the fast runs. i like what you're trying to do here a lot, but it's failing on execution. the power of that section needs to come from good scoring and part-writing and timbral expansion, not just because you quadrupled the volume of what was there. there's a break back to the opening scoring at 2:00 that emphasizes how dramatic the dynamic shift you're demonstrating is. 2:26 features a recap and expansion of the last part of your prior orchestral section, and a fairly well-handled ending. from an arrangement standpoint, this is a fun listen that falls a bit short on the implementation of your part-writing specifically. you've got very dynamic and score-oriented samples, and so they're very vibrant but they're just not suited for the speed and flexibility of the parts that you're asking for, and they're suffering a bit from that. something that'd help is finding a patch that's got less vibrato on sustained notes (notably in your vin 1 part), and then relying less on wall of volume for your more intense parts and more on instrument timbre to drive home the excitement. a compressor will help significantly with this, and it may help level the opening sections where your arpeggiated solo violin switches to stepwise motion where it sounds so different right now. this is fun but not there. this may require better samples before it does what you want, but i think it's worth the effort as there's a dynamic and interesting piece under the plodding attacks right now. NO

this is very quiet outside of a single spike - at least room for 4db increase, if not more. the kalimba's got a nice sound. once the rest of the band comes in, this has a very Stardew Valley sound to it - very organic, very present. i agree that the kalimba's pretty repetitive but it's placed in the soundscape well so it's not obnoxious. the arrangement does a nice job expanding on the melody throughout. the ending's pretty lackluster, which is unfortunate when the main body of the piece is actually pretty clever in its simplicity. my only other complaint would be that some of the guitar performance is stiff, but as a whole it's well-played and feels nice. this is certainly not perfect, as rexy said, but you nailed the vibe and made a short and sweet track that is fun to listen to. i think this is over the bar. YES

hey, this is a great genre adaptation for this track. i always felt this was kind of a ballad feel, and the switching it to downtempo r'n'b is a fun idea. right off the bat i noticed the mix of wet and dry that rexy mentioned. it's really noticeable, especially since you've done a nice job with replicating a lot of the common genre staples like the super-echo snap. it extends elsewhere too - this style really needs a clearly defined soundscape with a lot more verb presence throughout to match up to the vocal set. i did like the vocals but they're too loud when they come in, as well. beyond that, there's heavy use of panning (simply too much) - a great example is the strings in the left ear at 2:17, they're just too wide to the point that they gave me an earache very quickly. right after that is the pretty fun arp that you bring in, which sounds great but emphasizes some wrong notes in the backing pads for the last two chords, at 2:43.2 and 2:43.8 - sounds like the sustain is hanging into the next chord. beyond that, there's a lot of copy-paste here - at least twice, where the vocal sections happen - and then a really, really long tail that's the expected parabolic curve but is a straight fade for nearly 30 seconds (should probably be closer to 10, with the top and bottom of that fade being much slower than the middle). i probably sound like i hate it, and that's not true at all. i actually really dig this style and think you did a great job making the base level of what should be a pretty fun remix! i think right now it needs a bunch of updates in the soundscape in terms of effecting, volumization, and layering, and i think the arrangement is like ~1:45 of music scraped over 3:45 of bread. this definitely needs a clear B section that stands up in terms of content and quality to the pretty fun A section with your singer, and separately needs some attention paid to the repeated sections so they're not just restatements of the same ideas. always do one less repeat than you think you need, to bring the listener back again to hear it again =) soundscape and arrangement issues are holding this back. i think this could really benefit from some workshopping, and then it'll be one i'd love to hear again for round 2. NO

beautiful opening, and the very warm piano tone really fits the feel. the presentation of the melody at 0:42 is fairly straightforward, but flows well and is voiced well. i agree with rexy that this is a very organic performance - there's a lot of fluctuations of tempo, but it works well to keep it feeling very real. the big dynamic jump at 1:51 was sudden but well-played. this entire section until 2:33 is a bit more hammering and intense, and it wasn't really the same feel as the beginning. the subsequent marcato section was fun but had a lot of timing issues to my ears. not unenjoyable, but definitely noticeable. the quick shift to quieter playing was a nice transition as well. 3:05 definitely feels like a recap, and does a nice job going through the melodic content again before the extended ending/outro. the last five or six seconds of playing are really well-handled. there's a lot of extra silence at the end that can be trimmed. from a mastering perspective, this is much more dynamic than we usually get for submissions, but the instrumental medium supports it well so i didn't mind. i thought the piano sounded great throughout, and felt very well-performed and well-supported. this is a pretty easy vote. nice work as always. YES