prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

>5db of headroom. opens with a straightforward version of the original in piano, which quickly adds some band stuff at 0:13. mix is very dense in the low mids especially and is very muddy. sounds pretty low-poly too, like it's been downsampled at some point - it feels like when i used to run 64kbps on my 256mb mp3 player so i had enough room for all my songs =D 0:29, a guitar lead comes in. it's fantastically handled and sounds great. the arrangement up through here is doing a good job of letting the fun parts of the original come through and not getting in its own way. there's a break at 1:24, again with the keys. we get an electro build-up (i really expected edm after that), and then we get another guitar solo that again is great and well-handled. another electro break and there's a recap at 2:08 with the guitar leading again. one more lick in the piano, and it's done. this is a really fun arrangement! it's nothing over the top or complex, but it does a great job highlighting the reasons this is such a heavily covered theme. the lead guitar does a fantastic job especially with the solos. my main issue is the mastering sounds pretty rough. there's a ton of sub-40hz content which is gumming things up, as is a very broad and dense freq package between like 100-300hz. you have a ton of fundamental and not much in the mid to high mid space, which makes it sound really heavy and cluttered. cleaning that up is just a matter of pulling back some of the filtering on the lead elements (the keys sound like they've got a significant low-pass on them for example) and notching in the EQ on some of the other instruments to avoid conflicts between, say, the rhythm guitar and kick. this is really close to being super fun! just adjust some of the mix and we'll be there. NO

opens with a bass riff, and we get some difficult-to-consume riffs until we hear the electric guitar play something that's a little more recognizable. there's a bit of melody at 0:35, but the lead guitar is overwhelmingly loud compared to the other elements so it's kind of hard to tell what's melody snippets and what isn't. there's a phase section right after, and we get some of the ascending riff from the original in the 1:13 section and a few times after. i hear the half-step line at 1:40 as well. there's a transition into an extended bass solo. it's impressively performed and - if indeed fully improvised, really impressively created - and it has, to my ears nothing to clearly tie it to the source, which is going to make recognizable source usage tough. there's a fun transition out of the bass solo that's very In The Presence Of Enemies by DT, and more of the half-step noodles. we get some reinforced melodic elements, and then a not-ending. so, for source - there's a ton of adapted references to the source material in the band sections - it's just very highly adapted. the bass solo doesn't have any source to my ears, so of the remaining ~3 minutes, we'd need about 2:20 of that to be playing Kalle Demos. taking out the transition sections that are just original, I'm pretty sure we're close enough, but timestamping this would be rough given that i don't hear all of the correlations (for example, i can't map the bass to anything). from a mix perspective, there's parts of this that really sparkle - the bass tone and the solo, for example - and there's parts where the lead guitar just totally takes over and the mix doesn't work at all (like at 1:40, where the lead is 2x as loud as it should be). i think the drums throughout are too quiet except the bass beater tone, and the pads in general are too loud. i didn't prefer the band sound as a whole very much actually. reining in the edge of the lead guitar might have helped with that. from a holistic perspective, there's a clear direction for the entire track throughout, and i think that the overall progression is indeed accessible to a degree. i think the solo goes a bit long and the ending is a disappointment (something you corrected in Lost in the Woods!), and i think that a firmer grounding at the beginning of the elements you're going to use would have helped a lot. this is a highly cerebral piece as expected, but once you understand the elements and how they're being used, there's a really clear concept that's being defined and approached here. it's probably too complex for its own good - as expected given the arranger! - but your friendly local alphabet-heavy bass soloist does seem to have done something here that isn't too sideways to fit on the site. YES

i listened to the other source reference that was here and then listened to all nearly 10 minutes of the remix, and was completely confounded by how wildly different they were. lo and behold, wrong source mix =) that makes more sense! opens with a vocal ascending line that fits the theme really well. a beat starts to develop over the next 30s, and around 0:38 we settle into something that is recognizable. there's an intentional lo-fi feel to this throughout - the percussion and keys especially are very low-poly and take a bit of getting used to. the track is way too long to really do a play-by-play, but essentially it's a wide exploration of the ascending riff that starts fairly early on in the source, with an occasional use of the opening descending lick as a break. from an arrangement perspective, there's an impressively broad use of that ascending riff and it's immediately apparent once you actually know what you're looking for. around the middle of the piece, there's some really exploratory outlining of that same riff while keeping it fresh, which is a pretty neat job. similar action at 5:40 or so. around 7:40 or so i started to get a little tired of the variety of repetition (bravo for keeping it unique for that long!) but then we suddenly got some interesting arpeggiated elements. the end is the middle of a phrase though and that was super bogus, i really wanted more there. i desperately want this track in our backlog. there's certainly room to improve the production of this by miles, but dang if this isn't one of the more unique tracks we've had in our inbox at any point. the ending stinks and i wish the kick was meatier, but what's here is so interesting. YES edit 9/15: if this is AI it's a no.

at least 5db of headroom, realistically, probably more. opens with some clavinet, and we get some bass guitar and percussive elements pretty quickly before a full band sound at 0:15. nothing really sounds like there's been a mixing pass done on it - the snare's got a lot of fundamental, the kick is hard to hear, the bass is very fundamental as well and boomy, and it sounds like there's no room sound on most of the instruments that play notes. but the band sound is neat - i like the lead tone, and the keys in the background are nice as is the ensemble horns. the arrangement is surprisingly similar to the original given that they have very different feels. most of the burbles and accent elements are from the original. but the solos are really nice - there's some really solid playing there. several elements are reused a lot - the transition radio effect is used several times. the ending doesn't really exist, either, which is a bummer. adding a single rolled chord at the end would have been an easy way to end it. this is a fun, quick ride through a neat theme. the mix isn't near showtime, but the performance is. get some EQ on these instruments and some proper compression, and get the gain up, and this'll be good enough for me. but what i really want to hear is for that repeated transitional element to be switched out, add a bit more drizzle to the arrangement so the countermelodic elements aren't so similar to the original, and to get a real ending that isn't just layering in the previously-used clip. NO

opens with a sustained version of the descending riff that's the the original throughout. there's some bass elements coming in eventually as well. 0:36 is where the melodic material comes in. there's some timing funness in here which is a neat thing. it's very Final Frontier-ish for a bit there until the descending arp comes back in with a beat. i like the bass automation bringing those tones in and out. it does this for about two minutes, and then there's a bit of a break for a few seconds before it gets back into it. i wouldn't have minded more of a shift there at 2:49. we do finally get a bit of a shift in the timbres at 3:39. one more languid melodic line, and then it fades out very suddenly in a detuned manner. so i really was digging this at first. when the beat finally comes in and it's trucking along, i thought that was really solid, through about 2:30 or so. after that it was over a minute before we really got a change from that same thing, and the change was minimal (just some timbral elements) before a non-ending, which is a real bummer. i think the concept is really neat and i really like the instrument choice. i wish that it'd mixed things up more in the second half, but what's here is probably enough. if this doesn't pass, adding some more progression to the track after the 2:45 mark would be an easy win, as would adding an ending at all. YES

track is hard-limited to -2dba and has some visible waveform clipping. opens with some very verby elements - piano, muted guitar, and electric guitar in octaves. lot of panning. a huge, heavy beat comes in at 0:39 and it clips pretty hard there. there's some other pad elements but everything feels so loud that i can't really hear what's going on. at 1:01, the texture thins out again, and there's some neat little bell elements. we get a transition into 1:35 where the melody's in the voice. there's a very loud, low piano part that's unfortunately causing more clipping here. the kick comes back in at 2:08 and exacerbates the clipping and distortion that's going on. it's unfortunate because what's here - the piano swimming in reverb, various lead elements, the bells - sounds really cool, but it's just very crunchy in a way that doesn't sound intentional. there's an outro flourish and it's done. most of your elements are not EQ'd at all, to my ear. at the very least, you're going to want to apply an EQ to each instrument that cuts unwanted frequencies. right now several instruments are pushing sound below 40hz, and it's causing everything to sound cluttered and muddy. turning everything down overall and then ensuring that instruments aren't transmitting in ranges you don't want them will help a lot. you have several competing instruments in the low range as well - stripping that back a bit will also help. this is a really, really cool arrangement, and i love the approach especially in your lead choices between the guitar and voice. if we can clean up the unintentional clipping, this could be really stellar. NO

my vote on the resub focused mostly on the vocal sample not really fitting the progression, the trumpet really needing humanization, and a few other smaller tweaks that were mentioned. long sustained strings to open the track, and a persian scale vocal sample for a bit. we get into the melodic material at 0:32, and some horns reinforce things at 0:48. there's one more vocal sustain before the main melody comes in at 1:02. 1:42's another transitional element featuring the vocal line, and we're into a chorale section at 1:47 that is mostly brass driven. there's some percussion and a harpsichord at 2:13, and the trumpet's the lead here. there's a few notes that are a bit funky - not wrong, but just odd choices in here. the flute takes the lead for one last run through the B side of the theme, and it's done. i need to admit that i really don't think the vocal patches fit at all. there's no foundation for them harmonically as they're in a different tonal structure, they're stapled into a few transitional sections and never touched anywhere else, and they're quite loud in the mix relative to other instruments. i think you could remove them entirely, just mute the channel, and the track wouldn't suffer at all. but it's definitely possible this is a personal feeling about vocal samples in mixes in general, and not specific to your track. i don't think i'm ever going to be in a place where the uncanny-valley effect of the flute doesn't bother me. but as a whole, i think that this is finally where it needs to be. personalization doesn't need to always be a significant amount of altered chords, time sigs, or expansion. what's done here to personalize the melodic line and backing elements is enough for me. YES

my original vote loved the concept, but had issues with several elements including amp sim noise and synth attacks. still really like the opening pads and swells alongside the delayed plucked tones. the kalimba elements are really nice. at 0:35 there is a distinct shelf with a lot of pressure in the low mids, around 200hz, and that was unexpected. the guitar sounds a lot better and no longer has the amp tone that was so distracting. the sixteenths that come in around 1:15 are so good - i love how they're able to fade in so carefully and never get too big. backing synths at 1:36 are much more tame without losing their attack entirely, so that's nice. 2:11's more constrained as well, and we can still hear the bass movement that was so interesting in the msfs track. from there, it's a smooth flight out to the ending. the last fade's been trimmed which i think is a good choice. this improved a lot since the last take. the new additions to help flesh out the arrangement are welcome, and i think that taming down some of the edges on the synths is a huge positive. i think this one arrived at the destination just fine. YES

really extended, atmospheric intro. loads of rings and sweeps in there. the panning elements were a little disconcerting on headphones at first. the strings emerging from the distortion mess around 0:45 was a really neat idea, reminded me of some of the electrorchestral stuff on the Matrix soundtracks. there's a big build in the keys and beat into 1:24, which is a great payoff section. there's a lot going on in the low mids with all those buzzy elements, and as a result there's not really any bass presence on the initial pop there. it doesn't sound like there's any sidechaining on the pads (although i can hear their retrigger points, which is disconcerting), and that might open up some more room for the kick and bass elements if that was there. after the initial first blow of the melodic material, there's a follow-on section that's a little less intense before a full drop at 2:13. this goes right back into the melody during that quieter section - a break before hitting that melodic line the third time in a row may have been a nice thing to have there. there is indeed a break starting at 2:36, and the track's in a bit of a holding pattern for a bit to let the build work, which is a nice pause from the melodic material. we get one more filtered break, and then 3:00 is the first time we don't have a beat. this is more cinematic, and feels like it's building back up to a big blow - but doesn't quite ever get there. this is a nice way to get people to want to listen again. there's a bunch of sound design on the way out and it's done after some more growls and booms. fun idea. i appreciate the restraint at the end to not do a victory lap on the same chorus you'd already hit a few times. i wouldn't have minded some more intentional pacing in the middle and a cleaner mix around 1:24, but what's here is a lot of fun. nice work. YES

intense open. that synth in the opening is really fun. and the fading in guitar is great. drums come in with bass at 0:23 and it sounds way, way, overcompressed. drums have zero punch, especially the kick, and they've been scooped pretty hard to my ears. there's an enormous peak in this opening section where the bass is, at about 80hz, and it's a lot of pressure in my ears. everything sounds hyper-notched and heavily boosted within that notch. EK's voice is really loud without any formant boost which is part of the issue - she takes up a lot of the freq range - and also her voice's reverb is really present and loud, which is also occupying freq range. gregorio's growls are pretty deep, and that might be affecting it a bit too - some formant boost in the low 2k range would help him to pop without being so loud. the chorus really highlights some of what i called out. ek's reverb on her voice is louder than the drums - cutting that back a bit, turning down her voice a decent amount, and pushing her formant a bit will allow you to get the band sound more balanced. the kick is all beater and no beef - the drum patterns sound really cool, but i just can't hear what they're doing. the beater tone is louder than the overheads for example. bass is pretty loud for not having a very bright attack tone - again, most of this track, the bass peaks at 80hz or so and i'd expect it to be an octave below that, at 40hz (edit: this is apparently unfamiliarity with the genre, my mistake). the rhythm guitar parts feel very noisy and not particularly meaty - that might be with how they're tracked, i am not as good at that stuff. but i'll note that the lead guitar part that comes in right after feels thin. that might be due to the choice of distortion and amping, or due to the EQing. gonna page @pixelseph for more specific recs around that. the chorus with harmonies, at 2:40, feels good and aggressive from an arrangement perspective. ek's harmony voice needs to be heavily EQ'd down to be a lot thinner, and again formant boosted so it pops. that'll help it not press back so much on the guitar elements in the same range. it's not super clear why her harmony part isn't in the same rhythm as the melodic line - that'd be easy to fix in melodyne if you wanted to. there's a big break at 3:18, and i think this emphasizes how loud everything is. there's just the lead guitar by itself and it's loud loud, and then everything else comes in and it's so present. the bass is way, way too loud here, especially under the growls that come in right after. i like this section as a break section though - it's intense and a fun idea. the unison section right after this at 4:14 is something i didn't care for at all. unison singing is one of the hardest things to do in a way that 'feels' right because our ears so naturally identify phasing and intonation issues at the unison. ek does an admirable job, but the reinforcement of the two parts makes it way louder than everything else. we go through another chorus - this might be five times? and they all sound the same, at least mixing up rhythmic elements would be a huge improvement - and hit the last big chord to fade it out. so, yes, i agree that there's a lot to be done on the production side here before this is really there. something this big is always such an undertaking. i think the performances are great! and i like the approach a lot. i wouldn't have minded more personalization throughout, but the big dealbreaker for me is the mastering. crank the bass back, fix ek's effects chain and formant/eqing, and spend some time getting the drums to be punchier and the overall mix to not have such a huge peak at 80hz, and you're going to have a much more enjoyable experience overall. NO

truly a seminal original. opening has some nice glam on the lead's octaves. swelling pads have some nice movement too. beat hits at 0:41 with the iconic arpeggio line initially. i agree that it's very fast and feels really frenetic. there's no real melodic material here, it's just the arp. a bit of a build into 1:39 where the melody line shows up for the first time. the kick here is interesting, and the backing elements being stripped so far back to really just the down-flam of the piano rolled chords is an interesting idea. there's some crunchy notes in here (notably 2:05). 2:17's a recap of the original arp with some very simple elements from the B section, and there's some more percs added in over time. there's a recap of 1:39's melody line, and there continue to be some crunchy notes (i think that the bass and drum line are repeated completely as well). 3:34 is a break with a recap of the opening glammy line. there's a build at 3:53 to get it moving again for one last blow through the A theme, again repeated from earlier. this isn't 1:1 to 1:39, but it's very clear where each chunk was copied and pasted into this section. there's no real ending, just a final line from the opening section. this feels a little too boxed up for me, i think. it's very clear where the 90s or so of material you arranged originally ends, and then it's just repeated in various combinations for the next three or so minutes. there really should be significant variation in the big chorus sections with the drums going, and i don't hear that at all - it really just sounds like the same thing each time. i think the sonic palette sounds great, and i like the approach overall a lot. i think there needs to be more detail on the individual sections so they're not just repeated blocks from earlier in different combinations. there's also some real crunch in several points that should be addressed. it's a cool concept! i think it needs less repetition. you could probably knock a minute plus off of the overall length without losing anything. NO

opening guitar is excellent. opening drums were kind of blah. the hats have some weird cuts to them (like at 1:04), and the cymbal crash at 0:42 is notably different than the rest of the kit as well. lead acoustic though is outrageously good as expected from the artist. chorus at 1:18 has a nice glidey synth as the lead that's a bit too quiet, and there's a lot of that crash being used through here and it gets obvious that it's the same sample. it's really grating on me - in fact, most of the drums are, they're really basic and use lots of repeated passages. 2:45 is a straight repeat of 1:18 with the only difference being the acoustic coming in at 2:58 to mirror the lead, until the chord difference at the end. the section after this, at 3:24, features some GotW, and the flute's excellent but too quiet in the mix - it quickly gets overwhelmed. there's a third play-through of the chorus with the same lead articulated nearly the same way again, and once more with some guitar soloing over the top. i think there's a lot of repetition, and i didn't care for the blandness of the drums or most of their sample usage. but i think that the overall approach is great, and it's a low-key but enjoyable arrangement. i think that some more dynamics and more personalization to elements that weren't the guitar would have been a meaningful and significant improvement, but we don't judge based on potential - just results. YES

Pipko posted a slight mixing update in the comments of the submission form.

low opening. intro bass has some movement on it and seems like a dressed-up version of the original. beat and lead start at 0:17. the static tone to the countermelodic material is a bit tiresome - i'd love to hear some decay or movement on it. kick is also kind of blah - i don't hear sidechain, so it doesn't really pop as much as i'd expect for something like this. short break and a loop comes in for the drums at 0:59. again the kick doesn't pop, and the loop itself is kind of obvious, but there's some movement after about 30s which is needed. there's no pad through here either so the arrangement doesn't feel like it's progressing - it's the same as before, with different drums added in. the lack of change to the main instruments, like LT talks about, is also a factor here. 1:27 adds more drums but nothing else changes. same same, we need some progression to the track. even breaks in between the melodic representation can help with that - this is just hammering the melody over and over. 2:00ish is just the countermelodic instrument, and again, this is needing to be mixed up. there's a few different things in the drums but overall this is oatmeal. there's more of the same for a while, with different combinations of the same instruments doing the same thing. so a key problem here is that nothing changes. we don't get personalized melody, altered chords, new keys, new countermelodic material after the initial representation, not anything. this is a sub-one minute loop that's been stretched to over five minutes by way, way too much repetition. i'd seriously consider stripping it back to a minute at most, and then finding new ways to represent the general synthwave idea (which i think works really well, to be fair) in more unique ways. this is just too much repetition, and too much of a static nature. NO

opens with a ringy version of the opening riff, and we get a slam transition into a big hit right at 0:11. this is right on the line of clipping, straight gigasausage, and it's very old-school in the sound to me. there's an immediate fade-down to a break for a short period before another big hit at 0:34. this flaps back and forth a bunch over the next 30s, but it adds a ton of extra sfx and supporting elements in here - the adaptation to the genre is fantastic. i'd call 1:07 a payoff chorus in that it's longer than 10s, and again sounds good. the breakdown at 1:40 is longer than i expected given the length of the track, but the transition at 2:04 is great and i loved the stutter focus at the end. lots of variety throughout. i wouldn't have minded letting the end hang instead of cut, but it's a functional ending. this is fun! i wasn't sure at first because it felt pretty true to the midi at first, but there's loads of supporting material. fun track. YES

opens with some beautiful descending arpeggiated action, and settles into a 12/8 feel before starting with the Terra melody (really the main theme of the game in various forms). i really appreciate the space added to the melodic representation. the ascending blocks in the left hand are nice too. at 1:25 we get the melodic represented an octave up, which i think is a good choice as you move away from the left hand block for a bit each time - a nice break. about two minutes in we get the Ceremony of Gods section, which has some stacked/blocked chords in a way that feels very chant-like - neat idea. there's a quick transition to the Terra theme complete with a fun new landing chord in here, and then the track moves out on An Irrevocable Past as an ending vehicle. it'd be easy to believe that these were all the same piece of music originally. the transitions are seamless and the performance is excellent as expected. this is a layup, excellent work. YES

i voted on this way back in 2022, and primarily had issues with a bunch of notes that were crunchy. tbh i don't remember it much. opens with some stutter synths and pads, and we get some percs to help it build in. the bass hits at 0:27, and i agree with joe - it sounds nice. the smooth lead is a fun feel, and there's a quirky repeated note in the background that's doing fun stuff. i wouldn't mind if the bass tone was a bit more sustained. the snare at 0:55 is indeed a bit big, but tbh i think it actually needs more reverb, not less (and make it quieter, yes) so it feels more sustained alongside all these other verby synths. the melodic material there is the first that we've heard, and it's fairly straightforward. there's a continued reliance on viio chords as outlined in the ascending skip section of the melody, and it still doesn't sound right. this is something i called out in my last review of the track - i'll try and spell it out more carefully here. the chord at 0:58.5 is a G# fully diminished (G# B D F, also called G#o or vii o in this key), and the bass playing something that sounds like an E. the detuning on the bass might be causing this, but overall, the real issue is that you're putting an E in the bass next to an F in the chord. you should probably just make this an E7 (E in bass, and E G# B D above it), and let the F in the melody be a passing tone (or move it around so it fits). this is an issue every time it comes around. after the melodic section, we get some ascending patterns around 1:22 in the lead. this is a lot of the same lead tone in a row, and may have been better served with a different tone here. and then, at 1:36, you use the same lead tone to do some fanfares (but lower than the other ascending line). this is nearly impossible to distinguish and just sounds overlapping and confusing. the following section at 1:50 is, in contrast, a nice change due to the new lead and feel there. i think you could have moved away from the echoed, gated, chippy backing synth as well, to help reinforce the difference. there's a fun little break, and at 2:18 we're into a new feel. again, the issue of the G# dim is back, and it's worse here. every time that chord comes around, it sounds like there's obvious dissonance. that needs to be fixed before anything could be posted. there's a short outro section in ep, and it's done. it's a little sudden, and maybe could have been prepped or fleshed out a bit more. this is a fun track, and i like the feel. the dissonance is still an issue and this cannot pass with it in there. i'd be happy to help you identify and fix it if you'd like - i suspect it's an easy thing to find. beyond that, the layering at 1:36 needs to be shifted around so it's able to be differentiated - probably by moving one of the parts to a different instrument. i think that snare could use some love too - i didn't mind it near as much as joe, but it does need a more natural reverb tail on it (and to be turned down) so it fits into the instrumentation better. i don't think there's an issue with the 808, as that's endemic to the style. i do agree with joe that the arrangement overall is fun and enjoyable, we just need to fix a few things and then it's ready for primetime. NO

we reviewed this on the 6/18 NO SHOW. we all really enjoyed this. particularly i enjoyed the bass and flute elements - felt the flute really fit perfectly, and xander did a great job with it. i'll admit i thought that 0:47 was gonna be in 7/8 when i heard it first =) the shape of the track is great, and there's excellent energy throughout both in the arrangement and in the performances. i wish there was more of an ending, but that's a personal preference. i'm not going to do a full writeup since you can listen to the live show, but this is an easy vote for me. YES

we reviewed this on the 6/18 NO SHOW. in general, we all felt that this was too light on arrangement. there's little in the instrumentation (besides the percs/vocal elements) that isn't already in the original. there's some fun percussive elements, and i actually really thought that the vocal clips fit this song better than some of your others, but the arrangement made it a moot point. we gave some more in-depth notes on the show itself. i noted some copypasta in the backing elements as well. overall, this needs more of you, and less of mitsuda. NO

we reviewed this one on the 6/18 NO SHOW. i think this is a really fun arrangement! i really enjoyed the piano playing, and especially the tenor tone when it came in. i felt that the alto part sounds very thin and muffled throughout - this is a recording issue, and probably necessitates a re-record. we'd require similar re-records on a vocal part, for example, that had the same level of thinness and muffled/distorted tone (4:14's a great example, but it's throughout). there's a few points where the alto's pitchy too so that'd help that as well. separately, i felt that the tenor solo really didn't work in a lot of places - i think the overall shape of the solo was nice, but there's several points where the tenor's sitting on tones that don't fit the chord below it, and it's crunchy. tbh i'd recommend writing a solo (or a framework of one) and then using that. to be clear - i love the concept and adaptation. i think if the alto was re-recording playing the exact same notes with a touch of pitch correction, and if the tenor solo was a bit more on-key, this would be an easy pass. NO

gonna chime in because i really enjoyed this one. we did this on the 6/18 NO SHOW. this has a fantastic overall shape to it. i really appreciate the payoff section, like i talked about on the show, but separately also really enjoyed the build. i think the toms early on are too loud, and i thought that the bottles sound a bit funky next to the claps due to their attacks (and then later when they're popping in and out of the texture before the big transition), but those are nitpicks. this is fantastic. nice work. YES

we covered this one extensively on the 6/18 NO SHOW. my big highs on this one were the guitars coming in at 1:00, some of the synth choices, most of what the drums are saying conceptually, and the bass tone at the end. my big negatives here were the lack of humanization in the drums, the overall lack of direction to the arrangement (it just kind of sits in the same place for a long time and needs more dynamic contrast throughout, especially in the drums), and that it feels right now like far too much repetition throughout (this could easily be >60s shorter). i'm not going to do a huge writeup as we went over it in detail in the live show. i definitely think what you've got here is a great framework. some more attention to the arrangement's shape and possibly getting away from the arp as the main element for a time in the middle will make that last third a lot more impactful. NO

Its a bird! Its a plane! Its another PS1 RPG!!! Someone on discord talked about specialists and people who focus on certain kind of games and styles and well, maybe that's me. I will reach out my little tendrils sooner or later but when I heard about the live Judge NO Show? I was like, I HAVE to get one in there lol. While not guaranteed or anything, this was also close enough that I'm fine with it out of my hands anyway. But to that point really, I also don't mind this out of my hands because I was finished this song a long time ago! That's because this song was made backwards lol. I finished the second half first as just something vibin for my tiny YT channel and myself. I liked it so much I didn't wanna touch it ya know? But i also wanted to do this song for OCR at some point....but I already did it in a way I love....but I dont wanna change it either! Arggh whats a musician to do?! Oh, I'll just add a looong intro and then fuse the two! That'll work....right? Lol, who knows and the two sides came together in a way I'm happy with, but lets be real honest here. This song is essentially three loops. Loop A, Loop B, and Loop B2 if you will. I think...it could be fair to say the song could, for some, overstay its welcome. But man I vibe with it so much, I had to do it twice haha. B2 is a bit different in small ways and as is my calling card at this point, has a vox over top. I think I said this before in another sub but i used to be self-conscious about that but now I embrace it! Anyway, almost done here. On the composition side I have consistently been weak in my percussion but I wanted to try and be free and spicy but it could be too...messy in the beginning. However, the back end is a lot more conventional (for me). Which makes sense because the two were made at different times. From a production standpoint, I tried to make the two sides sound similar enough so it wasnt jarring when things changed. I think its okay but I am biased. Also...every time I think about the percussion sounds fine to me it sounds weak to others so uh, im curious how that works out this time. Anyway, thanks as always and much love. Until next time. Games & Sources Source: Sailing ~ Another World Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda

opens with a clock ticking away, and some various struck metals. there's a descending note pattern used here that appears to be a major scale for most of it - i think this is supposed to be the chord pattern but stripped down a bit. this fades into insect and swamp sfx at about 1:50, and we get some mallet work outlining the chord structure from the original. it's a tenuous connection at best as it's a pretty basic bassline that's followed. the later section of this does outline the chords more and is more recognizable. around 3:53, we transition into some wind sfx, and as part of that we get one of the first recognizable representations of the melodic material, in the glock. this is a very straightforward representation of it. the next transition is at 6:10, and is highlighted by the usage of the hand pan (one of my personal favorite instruments). this is again a fairly basic representation of the material, and isn't really transformed much beyond getting it into the instrument. next transition is around 8:10, and there's some really fun instruments used here - the lithophone concept is really neat. this version of the melodic material is much more stretched out and patient, and there's a little more interpretation in how it's being represented. the clock comes back at 10:40, for a bit at least, and then explores the long-delay nature of singing bowls (or really any metallophone). the part that is in 'harmony' is interesting due to the intense harmonics that metallophones feature, as well as the long delay to the tone. this is the last section. as it was going, i was concerned about source usage - the first section didn't use much at all, and the second's was limited to just the descending scalar pattern, which wasn't really enough to count. so the more significant usage on the final four sections is appreciated. i don't have a problem with source usage overall. so the next question is - does this count as enough arrangement? the sections that feature the original material are played in a very straightforward method, and there's little of what we describe in the standards as arrangement demonstrated here. and past arrangements of LXE have had me asking this question as well. after listening to it a bit, i think that the different sound palettes that are represented here are where the arrangement is - that is, the soundscapes created are the arrangement, not necessarily the notes themselves - similar to how pointillism is just dots until you look at the whole canvas. so, while it's certainly a bit of a stretch, yeah, i think this does enough. and the representation of the instruments and sfx is superb - you feel they're in the room with you - so that element is more than enough. what a unique concept. i like it more and more. YES

good to see you again, zack. opens with some interesting aleatoric bits and some keys and strings into a first real hit at 0:13. acoustic guitar as the lead sounds stellar as expected. strings do a nice job supporting the lead part. there's some really nice pacing with the opening section - the slow build is really handled well. drums come in at 1:09 on the second iteration of the theme. drums might be a bit extra in this early section, and more notably the snare especially seems to be bigger than i'd expect - it cuts through a lot. there's a bit of a break and we get a new lead instrument at 1:47. snare and cymbals continue to feel a bit bright here. the string swell at 2:09 is really nice. there's an extended drop and build after this, and the backing elements at 2:30 really start to come up to play - i love the strings in there at 2:46. we finally get the electric guitar we were all expecting at 2:55 - that's a great payoff. there's a nice guitar solo starting at 3:11 - a few different lead tones in here, and i like them all. we finish up the melody line, and there's a bit of falling action to finish it out. the ending swipe gets cut a bit and i don't know if that's intentional. this is, as expected, a beautiful rendition of a beautiful theme. i love the song's overall structure and how you build towards the big payoff solo section. excellent work. YES