prophetik music

from an arrangement perspective, there's some real fun stuff going on here. the significant drop in tempo does a lot to keep it from sounding same-y throughout, and i appreciated the choice of instrument for soloing in that section (although i found the violin to be both a bit pitchy and unintentionally out-of-time occasionally). i loved the glissandi, they felt very appropriate. i'll echo MW's thoughts about both the fluctuating appearance of mids and the seeming lack of low-end. additionally, i also found the hats in the middle section to be significantly more present in the mix than expected, and it sounds more like static than an instrument with how reverb is applied there. additionally, i found the synth guitars to be very awkward, to the point of really cheapening the mix. i don't think they particularly fit from a synth-rock perspective either. i'd love to hear either some better samples there or a live recording. i don't think this one is particularly close. the heavily-featured synth guitars lack punch, clarity, and realism, and the soundscape has big holes occasionally in the mids and usually in the lows. additional work with your eq - and instrumentation - will help fill out the aural range, and some updates to your guitars will really add body to the mix that it's currently lacking. NO

oh man, i played so much of this game back in the day! easily more than the actual trading card game irl =) this spends a lot of time being more of a cover than an arrangement, but it's got enough new stuff between the instrumentation and the key change to mix it enough that i think it's ok. not much else to say about the arrangement other than i think it's a fun take on the theme. from a performance perspective, i don't hear the stilted timing of the accordion at all. i actually thought that the timing was loose in a good way - like a jazz soloist playing in the drummer's pocket - and thought it was a great example of nuance. i have no issues with the accordion's playing at all, and as a whole thought that the performance of the live instruments was fine. the mastering is what's holding this back. it sounds very mid-heavy, and there's a lot of pumping. i think this needs to get stripped back to the bolts and done over, rather than a quick pass like what MW says. the bass is right in the kick's range, the drums feel very pitch-heavy and don't have much pop at all, and the guitars don't have any high-end to balance out how mid-heavy they are. spending time with each individual instrument and getting each to sparkle will help this track immensely, and move it from feeling like you just layered the parts on top of one another to feeling like you crafted each part to fit with one another. re-EQ the instruments, get rid of the pumping compression, and you've got an easy pass from me. the mastering's holding this back a lot right now. NO

another tripp track that's at more than -2db for a max, and has a long tail. need to stop seeing this. i went into this preparing to fight on rebecca's side about the articulations and humanization mentioned by rexy and LT, but the more i listened to this track, the more i realized that i agree with them. there's such nuance in the opening section - i loved the initial attack, and the spacing provided by the various percussion and specifically the malleted vibes at :20 was beautiful. i thought the flute was well-articulated as well, albeit a lot louder than the rest of the background, but it's an attractive and entrancing soundscape through 1:20 or so. while the strings and choir were in the background, they were great, but as soon as they came to the forefront their low-quality attacks (for the strings, notably 1:29's lack of release/attack coming out of the first phrase) and releases (for the choir, the blurbs at 1:57 are...really poorly handled, honestly) became obvious and really pulled me out of where i'd been earlier. from a mastering perspective, the track could use a volumization pass to tone down the upper men's choir and the string leads, but that's a minor issue compared to how poorly they're being used in the track. there's some real beautiful music here, but the wheels fall off the farther into the track you get. a better ensemble string sample and more attention to the men's choir when it's in the forefront will do a lot of good towards making this a passable track. NO

from an arrangement perspective, this one is spangling. great job using a variety of techniques to stretch 13 seconds out for nearly 15x that. i especially appreciated your overall use of space in the arrangement, which allowed the bigger sections to speak their mind without getting tiring. beyond that, i don't know if you did any post-work to the performance via midi or if this is a single take, but it's an impressive demonstration of both virtuosity and musicality. from a mastering side, this isn't as good. it's very lacking in upper range, which is surprising when ravenscroft pianos are noted for their ability to speak clearly when played quietly - you'd expect the instrument to sing in the upper range, and this doesn't. MW nails it when he says that the low end overpowers the mix, most notably in the first presentation of the theme from 0:14 to 0:36. 0:28 and 0:32 are really bad - the left hand is so strong so as to crush the melodic line and take over the soundscape. 1:26-1:32 is another example, and the smoking gun is the comparison between the strong right hand octaves at 1:32 compared to the left hand immediately after...the left hand is so much louder. you just need to straight-up crank down the low-end mic (the left of the two mics under Close on the VST, on the lowest bridge) and crank up the mic that's over the right bridge. once you've done that, the entire track needs a re-EQing to brighten up the top end and remove some of that dominating lower mid that's running over the rest of the track. my issues here are 100% mastering. the arrangement is superb. fixing the volumization so that you're not killing everything with your left hand and then brightening up the mix will make for a much more consumable track that really emphasizes the themes you were going for without losing the power and drive that you instilled in this arrangement. NO

this arrangement and realization does a great job of capturing the impending dread from the original game. i liked your choice of instrumentation, and thought the pitch-shifted vocals were great for helping set the mood. it's a longer track as well, but i thought the pacing was great and it didn't feel too long. i will say however that i agree though that it's got a lot of headroom in the upper frequency range throughout, and that makes the kit sound a bit weird. 4:36 onward also got really clouded, as a few other judges noted. all that said, this is a solid arrangement that is good enough on the production side. this is a great track a lot of people will enjoy. YES

i love this concept so much. it's so very quirky - like, bongos and uke and a bass clarinet? such an interesting combination to approach this track with, and i love the way that the arrangement is adapted as well. i agree with MW that there's no real need to stopwatch the arrangement - between the arpeggio and the clear restatement of melodic content as rexy mentioned above, it's way over half the track. i found the recording technique, as a whole, to be somewhat lacking. the booming in the wind recording comes from air pressure on the diaphragm of the mic, @Rexy, and i believe that the remixer simply didn't apply any post-processing to what they heard. it is certainly distracting. there's also some breathing at 2:25 and several points after that (or it's noise from moving your hands on the string?), and there's no real room noise here either. uke is an instrument with little sustain thanks to the design of the neck, and while you really need to get a mic in close to hear the initial pizz, it benefits immensely from a room mic to get you the resonance of the body. i think that's part of why the upper uke sounds so lacking in body - beyond the effects laid on it. continuing the theme of boxes not quite checked, there's silence to start and end the track which needs to be trimmed. as a whole, i love the concept, and i love the backstory on why the remixer went this way. i think it just doesn't sound polished enough to be on the site yet. NO

not gonna lie, i love all the CC remixes in the queue right now. what a unique approach this is. i feel like i've been saying this on all of your tracks i've looked at recently, and i don't mind in the slightest. the arrangement is fantastic and absolutely more than enough to pass on that ground. 2:53's recap in the piano and subsequent transformation stand out as a really great approach. this, as a whole, is much louder than your recent submissions, which i appreciate, but it also sounds really compressed. around 1:00 is an example of this - it sounds like the background is pumping around the brushes on the cymbals, and again around 1:22. it's happening a lot more than that, but that's where it stuck to me. it just sounds too loud. the mix feels like it can't breathe, which is compensated partially by the significant (and appreciated!) attention to panning and the stereo range. the compression needs to get backed off significantly to let the different instruments speak at their own levels. doing that will work wonders in making the soundscape speak clearer and avoiding the wads of low-end mulch that happen from about 2:35 onward. in regards to larry's comment, i believe that the mud is more caused by the slammed mastering than a problem with arrangement. i think another mastering pass like i mentioned above is enough to carry this. i also think that it needs more than a conditional could cover. NO

this is peppy and entertaining. i liked the whistle lead choice bringing in the melody, and i didn't mind the synths used to represent the opening section through :51. i also appreciated the dynamics used to bring in that leadup. the claps didn't bother me much initially, but once we moved into 1:17, the first real full statement of the melody with everything cooking, the low-poly feel of the whole thing took over and i really noticed how not-great the claps and hats sounded, how grating the saw was, and how basic and lacking in character the bass was. essentially, i really liked the arrangement and the energy you brought, but i disliked the instrument choices you used for that section. i really enjoyed the breakdown at 1:42. the sweeping filters and and the downtempo version of the melody lead was real fun, and the nuance in articulation in that lead was appreciated. i also didn't mind the length of this low-energy middle section - even though it's easily a third of the arrangement, it's well-paced and fun. the last major section, starting at 3:12, really bothered me. the drums are hard to listen to - the cymbals are just constant and irritating, and whatever the hats are doing is not congruent with what the rest of the background is doing. i honestly laughed out loud at the 3:25 machine-gun part. it's so confusing, because 3:44 shows that you know what you want to do, and you just aren't achieving it with these synths. if that saw is less detuned and doesn't grate against the background so badly, and you improve the quality of the hat and claps (and tone them down a touch), this is the best part of the track. it's so fun and energetic. from an overarching perspective, one of the things that stands out to me is your consistent use of dynamics to emphasize the breakdowns and breaks/fills, and i like that. as a whole though it isn't loud enough, and if anything i'd prefer that the dynamic range is less, rather than more. it's almost choppy in how far the levels change between sections, and i think that condensing the dynamic range will help to reduce that feel. in short - you've got some great arrangement here, and some great choices in instruments (the whistle lead, the comping pads, the sfx, the plectral instrument in the middle breakdown) that are harshly contrasted by really lofi/poor choices (the claps, hats, the simplistic bass, that lead saw). another pass on the mastering to close up the dynamic range and reduce the headroom, combined with some attention to your instrumentation, and this is a front pager for sure. NO

i don't have a lot to say that hasn't already said. i actually enjoyed the vibe you were creating (especially at first!), but there's simply not enough source to really call this one. while we have said that unique or memorable chord structures are enough for arrangement, this isn't either of those, and really needs more melody content to tie it to the source. i will say that the clipping is bad and needs to be fixed, and rexy nailed the sonic space issue when she talked about the shelf filter. once you've applied those (fairly straightforward) fixes, though, i think there's a good framework here. some creative attention to making connections to the source beyond the chord structure that don't mess with the vibe and feel you've got going will do wonders to the vote on a resub. NO

what a great performance this is. as others have mentioned, the timestamping is very helpful. i particularly liked the part at 2:07 - moving it from dorian to aeolian was an inspired choice that really emphasizes the melodic movement within the chord structure you gave the track. regarding rexy's note of the first two minutes - i was personally fine with his development of that opening motif, and feel it's enough to 'count' the entire first section. we've stated before that a chord progression that is defined and recognizable is acceptable, and this is more than that. if you want to be picky, the point where he deviates from the original's chord structure (E dorian - C - D) without focus on the motif exclusively is at 1m 10s. you lose about 8 seconds every time that happens, which between 1:10 and 2:07 is only three times. this is overlooking that the motif is being represented in the left hand the entire time, but either way, you lose 24 seconds there - which comes out to 51%, actually. so i don't see any issue with the amount of source usage presented. this is a really interesting and dynamic performance that captures a wholly new mood for the track. this is an easy vote in my book. YES

there is some really expressive ambiance in the beginning of this track. i was so digging the vibe and energy that you built, and then suddenly you've got 1:55 which is so well handled. what an incredible transition. all of these transitions are so well done. i'm normally super leery of medleys with a ton of tracks because they usually don't lend themselves to real exploration, but you found ways to subvert my expectations of each theme's usage. i particularly liked the consistent usage of 'corrupted' versions of the themes to keep my ears active in a track featuring many varied styles. bravo. this is an easy vote for me. YES

i'm going to sit on this one for a minute. on one hand, you've got some incredible performances - the vocal slide at 2:00 is fantastic, cyril brings the pain on some real difficult lines, and there's some really great solos in the lead guitar that i can't get enough. on the other hand, there are so many problems. the vocal timing at 0:47 is more than distracting, there's no verb on the lead guitar at all so it sounds totally separate in the mix from the rest of the ensemble, the vocals have a ton of vowels and no consonants so they're very difficult to understand, the backing organ/drums/bass are so much quieter than the vocals and lead guitar to the point that you can barely hear them sometimes...i love metal and want to like this, but it just doesn't sound done to me. edit: ultimately i don't think that this is a cohesive enough package. there's several specific things that are awesome here but they just don't balance out the issues i mentioned with mastering and level imbalance. i can't pass this in its current state. it feels like a first pass and not a finished version. NO

i like how light and airy this track is. it's simple, and it conveys a free feel that is attractive. i also didn't mind the intro/outro. they don't represent enough of the total track for me to worry about them comprising too much of the mix (although a fifteen-second inaudible tail fading out is way too long!). from an arrangement perspective, there's nowhere near enough development to consider this more than a cover/medley. rexy and LT did the yeoman's work timestamping what's going on, and there's simply way too little that's actually anything new. keeping the instrumentation so similar to the original really emphasizes how similar this is to the original, as well. while i agree that the instruments do help keep that nice vibe you've got going, there needs to be some updates to both the instrumentation and the part writing to make this more unique. from a mastering side, most of the track is below -3db, and the middle section is around -9db. way too quiet. projared's voice is really loud compared to the rest of the track and is what's preventing the whole thing from being brought up to a normal volume. i felt the instruments were fairly balanced, though, and the instruments all speak comfortably in their own places without shouting over each other. the arrangement simply doesn't have enough arrangement on this one. applying some creativity to the part writing and instrumentation, and fix the volume of PJ's voice, and you've got something that's probably got a place on this site. NO

https://kotaku.com/a-beautiful-musical-celebration-of-20-years-of-chrono-c-1833417147 apparently kotaku published an article the next day after release! just saw it now.

ooh, this one is fun! the shanties in this game are all pretty easily recognizable and singable, so it makes sense that an arrangement would come easily to you. i'm going to start with negatives, because there aren't many! there's a few weird notes here and there (these shanties are almost all in harmonic minor, not natural - so, G natural, never G flat like at 2:30 for example), but there's nowhere near enough to draw me out of the style. i liked the cinematic opening, but then you didn't use those (super fun) strings until the very end. i'd have loved to see them used more throughout than just a fiddle lead for a bit. MW hit on the fiddle getting lost when it's playing with everything else, and i agree that it could use adjustment there. that said, those are nitpicks at best. this is a great, fun, energetic arrangement that features some clever ideas both in the ending and in some of the exploration, and it's well-realized in recording and mastering. easy vote for me! YES!

i realize that we essentially have enough YESes for this one already, but i wanted to chime in. i found this track to be such a refreshing departure from the original. there's a ton of great and creative instrument choices used - specifically in the percussion - and i love the overall lo-fi feel of the piece. i know gario called out using that dark string pad from Omnisphere, but i thought it gave the track a cozy vibe that a more realistic patch would have not achieved. i also appreciate the remixer's willingness to really go after the middle section. it provides a nice cream filling to the cookies on each side, and i appreciate that there's just as much attention paid to that section's unique feel as to the other areas where the melody is presented. the short part starting at 4:33 is delightful, and going back to the string pad after that is a nice way to get back towards a recap. YES

i think that this is a great example of how to take a song and do almost the same thing, but not quite. i appreciated the fx clips and the consistent dynamic contrast that was presented throughout, and the space that's been allowed to exist really gives a great backdrop for when the rest of the mix is going. i also really like the attention paid to the lead to keep it interesting and varied. i think there's some attention that could be paid to the backing pads to prevent them from redlining the mix (at 1:28 it gets pretty loud, louder than it should with what's there), but that's a minor change if anything. as for it being not enough content - you can't really trim out the intro if the original also had the same style of slow intro - especially when it's part of the allure of the original! those sustained pads are such a good contrast to the actual body of the track. i think that the consistent use of spacing and contrast really make this a track that works. nice job. YES

just stamping this one in. i agree completely with the last three votes in that it's a great concept, and a fun arrangement, and ultimately too muddy. 2:20's intro of the choir pad is where it really goes off the rails. there's simply too much going on in the same range. i am really looking forward to this coming back with more aural separation. that's the only thing holding it back for me. opening up your max beyond -3db and doing some grunt work with your EQ and gain will really make this an easy vote. NO

hey, this has some fun energy. it feels nice and peppy and holds that through the entire track. i really appreciated tight snare on the kit too - it really was a good feel that helped propel the track forward. i agree that the arrangement is enough to get over the bar, but i do feel it's only barely over - it's not doing any favors there. that initial whistle playing the arpeggio is on so much of the track, and it never seems to change other than a note here or there for a few of the altered chords underneath the melody. the bass has the same problem - it's essentially the same the entire track, and never does anything other than the same pattern. the sidechained pads are ever-present as well, and it's only with the statement of the theme at 2:33 in the multisynth that we get some real arrangement. while i liked the downtempo section at 1:47, between the new chords and the key change at 2:33, it's this section at 2:33 that really carries it over the bar and keeps it there. from a mastering perspective, i found the LFO filter on the melodic lead at 1:47 to make it hard to hear the melody. similarly, the multisynth at 2:33 is hard to hear because there's just no place for it in the soundscape. the melody needs more bite in both places to let it speak, or it needs to be set in the soundscape better to allow it to speak out despite the timbral changes. toning back the sidechained pads would help a lot here - they're so strong throughout and there's only a focus for maybe 30 seconds at 1:18. spending some more time leveling and EQing your synths will help the overall track significantly. focus on what is the important parts in each section (melody, harmonies, etc), and level to those rather than just keeping everything the same the whole track. you'll have a much stronger submission as a result. NO

real talk, the wikipedia page on ＶＡＰＯＲＷＡＶＥ is hilarious. i love the soundtest intro. i definitely have always associated ＶＡＰＯＲＷＡＶＥ as being more of an 80's mall sound, and this is more sparse than i'd have expected for that. ＶＡＰＯＲＷＡＶＥ usually rides on a consistent kick and snare beat that you hear in most of of synthwave, and this doesn't feel like that. all that said, if we ignore that you said it was ＶＡＰＯＲＷＡＶＥ, then it's pretty spacy nu-jazz, and that's ok. the arrangement's consistent (if not immediately recognizable), it's got a great weird feel, and it doesn't fail on any specific level. however, it is quite sparse, the kit could use some work (it sounds so dead), it's barely two minutes long outside the intro/outro, and some body to the mix would do some wonders at making it more like something you'd hear at Kodak in the 80s. ultimately i don't think i can pass this. more attention to the kit and the kit's arrangement to add body and content would help immensely. it's also just too short - you only really go through the melody once, and it's transformed quite a bit beyond a clear statement of the theme. that compounds with the really spare instrumentation to make for something that doesn't quite feel like a song, but instead a backing track waiting for more to be added. NO

you took what is essentially a 30-second loop and made a 5:15 arrangement without changing tonality, tempo, style, or significantly changing your chosen instrumentation throughout, and it isn't terribly boring. bravo. this is a stellar attempt that only falls a little short. from the arrangement side, as others have noted, there's just too many times that you say the same thing. your attempts to mix up the instruments carrying the melody are notable, but there's only so many instruments that can carry it, and you exhausted them by halfway through. so, my suggestion is to explore other historical forms of variations. your arrangement uses some standard theme and variation forms - it's not quite a passacaglia since the bassline never really changes, but you use some of the concepts. my suggestions here are to explore some of the other historical techniques - things like changing or modifying the tonality of a section (Ive's "Variations on America"), dynamic variation (Ron Nelson's "Passacaglia on B-A-C-H" is essentially a 9-minute crescendo), or significant and systemic rhythmic variation (Mozart's "Twelve Variations on 'Ah vous dirai-je, Maman'" - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!) really can help with taking something that feels samey and turning it on its head. as an example only and not a suggestion, i guarantee that exploring some modal harmonies - even the relative minor! - would really quickly spice up and allow a return to major (and a recap of the initial theme) to hold more water without feeling repetitious. from a mastering side, i echo nuts in that it's simply too quiet. now, yes, i did just say that significant dynamic contrast can be good - but, this track screams for compression. well-sampled instruments that are properly velocitized can be slammed with compression and still sound like they have dynamic contrast due to the natural changes to the instrument's timbre that occurs when it's played louder. i'm not asking for some huge punchy compressor to bang the crap out of your bassline, but proper compression can really breath some life into the opening and middle sections that are quieter without altering the delicate balance you're trying to create. this is a real good effort, as i said before. it needs a mastering pass badly, and some more attention on the arrangement side to prevent feeling like it's two minutes of content scraped over five minutes of bread. another look will really help bring this up to your more recent standards. NO

this mix feels really unfinished overall. i really liked the continued attention to timbral variation and filtering on the bass synth, and there's some consistent energy displayed in the drums. however, i really struggled with the arrangement. there are too many places where it's just a bass, lead, simple pad or sfx, and drums playing. spots like 0:13-0:35, 0:59-1:22, and 1:48-2:10 are just so spare from a soundscape perspective. i get that some of that is building energy, but that's more than half of the first song's 'arrangement', and it's essentially a bassline and melody with breakbeats under it. there simply isn't enough work done to feature and bring out the original track there. it feels like a framework for a fun mix, but it never feels like it ever actually arrives. from a mastering perspective, there's no punch in the kick, and the bass is present but it's not particularly clear. beyond that, there's some significant leveling issues (like the aforementioned countermelody being way too loud)...it feels like the mastering pass was done on the gain sliders only and not from an EQ perspective. another look would really help bring out the fun energy in the bass, help the kick speak clearer, and allow you to balance the synths you have so far. NO

looking for this too, if anyone's got it.

holy shit, this song is nuts. those opening chords are like Brütal Legends-level of metal in an awesome way. i agree that it gets muddy in a few places, but i didn't mind it enough to note where i noticed it. if anything, it added to the feel. i also agree that there's times that the arrangement is simply trying to do too much. the transition at 0:27 is an example - there's some discordant chimes and orchestral parts, but i can't hear hardly anything over the sustained lead. that said, this style is so guitar-heavy that the focus isn't really on that enough for me to worry about it. i really appreciate the way that you allow for some sonic diversity with the sections like 2:45 where the orchestra takes over. i get that bombastic orchestral prog doesn't lend itself to dynamic contrast, so if timbral contrast is all i can get, i'll take it. it's timed well and fits in well without feeling weird. i also appreciate that you completely turbo ultra murderkill the guitar part straight dead for the whole song. superb job and attention to detail. i'd say the investment in a new axe has paid off, but that'd imply that you aren't a critical part of the equation. 3:43 through the guitar entrance is such a creative moment. i can't wait for others to hear it. superlative job. YES

i really enjoy this track the more i listen to it. i don't think the arrangement is ground-breaking, but it does enough to differentiate itself from the original. i like the energy - this style of electronica needs to have a feel of constantly moving forward or else the repetitive nature of the style gets tiresome, and i don't feel that in this one at all. i agree with the other judges that there's a really empty eq range here. the piano sounds mashed down - maybe a stylistic choice, but it really collapses the soundscape. i like the bass sound a lot actually, but the lack of low presence really is a problem. i thought the background parts were filled in enough that it didn't bother me overmuch, but it definitely wouldn't hurt to add some body to what's there. i think the production really pulls this track down overall, but the arrangement and realization is definitely above the bar for what we do here. some adjustments to your EQing and another look at your background parts, and this is going to be sparkling. NO (resub!)