prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

Hey there, I am back after some time away from the community. This track was made quite some time ago but was unfinished before I left for the ether of a salaryman's life. I think I was looking for inspiration before deciding to become active again and while appreciating the Tokyo skyline, I heard this song and it reminded me of some characters, as well as some details about their lives and the trauma they went through. A line from a character in the game during when this song is played killed me. So I had to finish the job. I'm not sure what Nobuo wanted to capture in this song but...whatever it was, I think he finished the job too. As far as what I wanted to capture, well, I remember Hemo or someone commenting that they liked it but maybe felt it could have more in the middle and end. Originally after the beginning it was all choir and piano. I found it tough to add to honestly because whatever I did always felt like it was suffocating the song rather than breathing life into it. I think I both found what felt right both instrumentation wise and balance. Still not perfect, especially in terms of automation and the like but I learned a lot about balancing different solo instruments competing for space and time. Especially with such a big verby, ethereal sound coming from the choir and piano. I like how it ended up and while I think this is overall conservative, the adornments add a ton of character that makes it, to my ears, stand on its own as opposed to a cover. As I've learned so far in my journey here, not everything needs to be avant garde. Anywho, I'm always here to learn more so I am curious what others have to say. Until next time. Games & Sources Final Fantasy VII - Other Side of the Mountain

my last vote centered around the oppressive feel of the mix and the limited sound palette, as well as some of the extended sections with a minimal amount of stuff going on. opens with some nice creepy arps and some woobly pads around the lavender town arpeggio. melody is there right away in some lower synths, and there's some sfx and a slow build into when it all hits at 0:56. the kick and bass have more punch this time than the last time i listened. the melody is carried by a distorted synth that feels kind of bland initially. there's a break with just some bass and snare at the 1:33 mark, and then another build (very similar but not quite to the first one) into a big bass triplet/gallop section. the track still feels kind of empty through here as it's primarily [bass and drums] and [arp] and [lead], and there aren't really a lot of other things to fill up the middle of the soundscape. there's a big style change at 2:25, led by a new bass groove, but it only lasts a few seconds. the subsequent break has a lot more body to it than it did the first time around, and the build has a lot more verve. i'd have liked a different kick fill than the last two. 3:13 is back to a similar feel as before - and, most damningly, it continues to use the same five or six elements. it's the same reversed arp tone, the same sweeps, the same lead tone, and the same bass riff as what started at 2:25. there's only so far you can stretch the same few things, no matter how much rhythmic variation you give each element - it really just sounds like you're alternating previous loops. 4:15 brings back the rising aleatoric sound with some heavily gated pad synths carrying the melody, but they're hard to hear. there's some subtractive elements for the ending, and it's done. it again cuts off hard instead of having a true fade. i think that, from a mastering perspective, this is a lot more listenable now. it's still loud and aggressive, and that makes sense from a stylistic perspective. my issue is that at no point does it actually feel upbeat and intense. all of the lead choices are very bland, and the lack of variety of sound choices behind those leads really makes it feel very rinse and repeat. separately, there's rarely a time where i feel the soundscape is filled out - i'm pretty sure there are pads going, but i rarely can tell they're there, and there's such a huge divide between the high arp sound (that never ever goes away) and the bass/kit that it's hard to connect them. i do think it's possible to use five instruments over a five-minute song and make it work. this track isn't doing that - there's enough variety in what's being said, but who's saying it becomes stale quickly. if you trim back some of the repetition (this track could probably be 3.5 minutes max pretty easily), and then focus on more intently crafting your soundscape and your lead choices especially, i think you'd have a much stronger track overall. NO

Original Decision Well I'm back, and thank you to the Judges for both being kind enough to suggest resubmitting and giving detailed feedback to action! So same story as last time, this is heavily inspired by what I'm listening to currently and right now that's Mandidextrous (Techno on My Mind) since she's in town this weekend! The other big thing that landed between last time and this is Reason 13, with an integrated sidechain tool that absolutely rocks for intuitive use, plus I discovered the Europa synthesiser rack extension (basically Serum for Reason). So with that in mind - addressing judge feedback and with a LOT of back and forth courtesy of the workshop channel on discord: - Stripped back the sausage significantly, removing the limiter and backing everything back to 0db before starting the mix again. - Added heaps of automation through the entire song to help drive build/decay elements and move the narrative along (yes it has a narrative - we arrive in Lavender Town, discover the truth of the tower, run from some ghosts and end up battling Sabrina - but did we win? At what cost?) - most significantly, totally replaced the bassline in the first section with a big filthy reese bass, cribbed from Neuro DnB. A friend dubbed it Neuro Hardcore. - added a couple extra layers of synths and relaxed out the main arp/chime sound to reduce the total overload. It's still heavy hard club music but maybe not quite so oppressive now? - this one is directly responding to Rexy and the fast triplets - added a phaser element to give that section some motion, but also rebuilt it to use a hand crafted laser effect (heavy modification of the earlier mentioned reese). In fact all of the synths have now had manual intervention to remove that "stock" feeling brought up by Liontamer. I think the end result is... Well, nowhere near what I originally intended this track to be, but it's a lot of fun to play loud and dance to (and make stinky bassface to in that middle bit 🤣), and I think it delivers on the promise of the extra long buildup at the start now. As bonus for me it mixes really well with Techno On My Mind so yay, I can play it in sets! Crossing fingers and toes, look forward to hearing back from the judges! Apologies for the external link, I still can't get the uploader to play nice. Games & Sources Pokemon Red - "Lavender Town"

my last vote was pretty flip-floppy, but ultimately i settled on the side of the crunchy chords being too much, and the repetition in the backing parts and the execution of some of the synths needed work. opens with some spacey stabs and eventually a nice meaty bass tone. melody comes in on the guitar at 0:41 (it's a bit loud initially) and then is passed to the lead synth with some rhythm guitar underneath. the first break hits at 1:22 and i especially like the tone of autopanning arp here. there's one more short recap of the melody in a middle voice at 2:02 (probably could start a touch louder) and then we get some guitar solo work. there's a bit of a bridge which works well to mix it up a bit, and then some more handing off of the melodic content before some outro content that goes on a bit longer than i'd have expected. i think this is a lot more cohesive of a package this time around. the variety of drums especially really helps each section take on a voice of its own, and the 'fixed' chord elements allow the track to speak cleaner. YES

This is a resub, original submission thread is here: Changes: - Changed the chords on the melody, as requested. - Re-Recorded the clean guitars to fit the new chords. - For the main lead synth, re-recorded the leads to be less 'stiff' and changed delay/reverb settings. - Changed the balance of the lead synths volume - Changed the low pass on the lead guitar - Re-did the bass line - Re-did the guitar solo - Changed the balance on the hi-hats - Changed a lot of the drum patterns Mix breakdown stays the same: 0:00-0:33 - slightly changed version of chord progression from source 0:41-1:22 - original source melody 1:22-1:30 - altered chord progression 1:30-2:02 - new arpeggios with different backing and variation bassline 2:02-2:11 - original source melody 2:12-2:26 - new guitar solo 2:26-2:42 - original melody 2:42-2:50 - altered chord progression from source 2:50-2:59 - new guitar 2:59-3:06 - original melody 3:06-3:31 - new arpeggios over the original chord progression 3:31-3:50 - slightly changed version of chord progression from source Games & Sources Earthbound - Twoson

not quite 5db headroom right off the bat. from an arrangement point, there is not a lot here that isn't in the original. it sounds like you basically transcribed the midi over and then put different instruments on it, and then created your own drum track. unfortunately that's not enough arrangement to fulfill 4.2. in the submission standards. notably, this line is important here: now, that said, i think that the concept (an upbeat edm take on the darkness nova) is one that has legs! but there's a lot that needs to happen here, including writing more backing elements like pads and a real bassline, using more unique sounds for your different parts instead of just a hornet lead for everything, writing a more defined and unique drum line, and then applying mastering techniques to give it more body and feel. what's here unfortunately wouldn't be enough on the technical side even if the arrangement was excellent. i suggestion you pursue some feedback in our workshop - either on the forums or in the discord (discord's more active right now). there's even live events where you can get real-time feedback from folks that you may want to pursue. what's here right now unfortunately isn't up to snuff. NO

opens with some sweeping autopanned pads, and we get some percussion before the bass comes in at the 30s mark. i didn't expect it to be triplets so that was fun. the kick doesn't really have much punch to it, nor do i hear any sidechaining around the kick in the pads. the drop at 0:45 to allow the bass to speak out more allows for some more space in the mix which i like. 1:00 is the first full demonstration of the melodic material, and i like the contrast of the gliding, smooth synth to the much more angular bass instrument. this continues to repeat the descending melodic line and slowly add complexity around it - first in the form of a choir pad and then a more rhythmic element. each of these are volumized a bit loud compared to the melodic concept although i like what they're saying (1:50 was nice). 2:00 appears to be the first time that we don't get anything really new, and it makes me realize that this is like a minute straight of the same everything without even a fill, and that's a long time to do the same thing in a straight line. varying up the melodic material a bit or doing some soloing over the top would have added a lot here, but instead it's just very repetitious. there's a hard cut at 2:30 to just the bass line for almost 20s - again, probably too long doing the same thing without changes - and then we get a time signature change to 4/4 and a melodic focus to the second half of the melodic content at 2:52. this feels much more plodding - maybe it's the longer snare with the hard cut on it that makes me feel that. the subsequent bass groove at 3:10 was really confusing at first - it really feels like you've got two basslines playing at the same time and glide set on the instrument. the significant volume jumps and random sfx elements dropping in out didn't sound intentional at all despite it obviously being so, and i didn't care for that at all. 3:45 we get some pads that are aggressively autopanned, and eventually get the melodic material from the A section back, and this time there's a lot more customization to what it's saying, which i like a lot. it still feels fairly repetitive due to the lack of variety in the drums and backing elements in this entire section. at 5:00 there's a sudden shift to a different feel, and it becomes obvious that this is the outro. it's not particularly connected to the rest of the work. overall this feels like three minutes of music scraped over five plus minutes of bread. there's a lot of padding and repetitiveness in here, and the lack of changes or even drum fills within each major section seems to be a huge miss. the individual textures are really fun - like 1:30 is a great sound and so is 4:05ish - but there's so much around them that just plods or is part of a minute-long build to the part we want to hear. trimming out the cruft and then doing a better job of balancing elements within each section would make for a much more complete package. similarly, that entire first half of the track could desperately use some more personalization. you've got the same descending riff for over a minute in a row without ever doing anything unique with it, with the same drums underneath and many of the same backing elements underneath the entire time as well. that's just too long to be doing the same thing. making it more unique will help so much with making it not sound repetitious. trim out the excess and make it more Norvak and less bobby prince, and we're in business. NO

opens with some next-room kicks and bass, and builds up some percussive elements over time until 0:31 when we get the nightmare battle theme with pulsing bass underneath. there is little adaptation on this initial presentation - it's almost exactly from the original. there's a transition at 1:16 and it's into the middle of Final Battle, i think. this is mostly based around the middle section with the descending chord progression, but in 4 instead of whatever the original was in. i found the brass bit at 1:46 to be a bit strident. there's a recap of Nightmare Battle at 2:07 with some wind fish bits interspersed and the game over theme making a cameo at 2:38. 2:40's ganon's message, i think? in the organ, and subsequently some bits of light dungeon, i think. there's a few small bits of the miniboss battle lead at the end, and it fades out over the course of maybe 15 seconds. the section from 0:31 to 1:14 and again from 2:07 to 2:23 are, to my ear, straight from nightmare battle with a very small amount of blurbles added in to mix it up and some bass/drum. the chips even sound mostly the same. that's approaching dealbreaker territory right there. the opening 30s are just a bass/kick buildup, as well, so that's a sizeable chunk of the remix that isn't really arrangement. most of the other track callouts except for Final Battle were just cameos, but the adaptation of Final Battle was way more involved, although i'd have liked it if more of the actual track was included. from a mixing and mastering standpoint, i felt that most of the time each instrument was clearly balanced and spoke well, with the exception of the organ stacks being way loud compared to everything else. that felt like it was volumized for the quieter section with no automation to balance it. there's also a lot of sub-40hz content that just served to fill up the mix instead of give it a booty, i'd have liked to see more rolloff in the lower freqs. the overall dynamics are varied however and there's a good shape to the track. i don't think i can pass this with the amount of material cribbed straight out of Nightmare Battle. if there was even the slightest bit of variation in what was represented there - maybe adding some alternative patterns in the bass around transition points, or personalizing the 'lead' part - then i'd be ok with this and it'd be a pass. or even if it was only like 20 seconds. but it's like a quarter of the song depending on where you put the start and end points. i think it's a bop! add more metatron to the nightmare battle section and i'm good with it. it's probably a ten-minute fix for someone of your caliber if you want to do it. NO

opens with fast hats and some quick backing stabs. we get some bass at 0:11 and the beat at 0:22, and it sounds great as expected (i had to check, i forgot about his post back in 2023!). the opening section of the original in minor makes for a surprisingly sinister lead bit. there's a big build before the main melody hits at 0:57. this is a break section, and then we get it again in as part of a bigger section right after. i can hear the volume automation there to make the melody pop through and it works great =) another break at 1:52, this time keys-driven with the B theme as the focus. i know this is a common sound but i like how bright these keys are to cut through. another big build and we get the existing chord line under those keys. some of the keys conflict a bit (2:22, 2:27) with that bassline, but overall this is a nice palate-cleanser section. there's some jamming on the chord progression and the C theme for a bit until we get to the last big break at 3:02. we get the spurs at 3:26 for the last big band section, and the C theme is the star here - again, surprisingly dark with this chord progression. the acid line you talked about really is nice to keep it moving in here. similar to many other tracks of this genre, there's not really an ending, which is a bit of a bummer - i'd at least have liked to end on a root chord. this is what it says on the label - fast, intense, with a surprising amount of adaptation contained in the chord progression and how the track is broken up. excellent work. YES

the quality of the samples for each isn't good enough, but we can review the arrangement at least. opens with some flutter tonguing in the flute on a sustain before the other members of the trio come in. the trumpet's the lead instrument initially, and i like the articulation and personalization of the trumpet part. the three instruments are all pretty centered which makes it hard to tell them apart. there's a wrong note at 0:46, and again in the trill at 1:01. the backing trumpet part at 1:08 isn't really idiomatic to the instrument (be better in the flute actually). it's over very quickly. there's a lot of interesting arrangement ideas throughout, so that's good. what's here however isn't really enough (we usually require at least two minutes, and considering the opening, this is less than 1:40). i'd encourage you to find ways to extend the arrangement that aren't just looping between the A and B themes from the original. similarly, finding more ways to make this yours - chord changes, more variety in the backing elements that aren't the same as what's in the original - would be a big help with extending the overall duration. from a technical perspective, you're doing a nice job with the instruments that you have, but anytime you're working with something so exposed, instrument quality becomes paramount. i couldn't hear enough of the flute to tell, but the violin and trumpet both don't sound particularly realistic despite a lot of attention paid to attacks and cutoffs. separately, i like the combination of violin, flute, and trumpet, but in general the trumpet overpowers everything else (as expected), and the scoring and range of the other two instruments doesn't help that. finding a way to balance your three instruments (whatever they wind up being) is very important in a small ensemble like this. this is a surprisingly good arrangement given the duration, but it's definitely not there yet. NO

opens with a fun flourish and then hits the groove right away. i don't really hear the bass instrument a ton but there's a lot of kick off the bat, and the kick's tone is pretty blah. there's a nice break right at 0:30 that's the melodic material right through - the vibe here reminds me a lot of the music for a puzzle game i'm playing right now, Tents and Trees. picks up at 0:54 with a descending pattern that mimics the ending of the original but i don't think is directly related to what it does. bridge section has some fun crunch in a few chords. 1:30 gets back to the melodic material in the solos, although it's not 1:1. there's an extended set of the descending chromaticism to end the track, and then it's done. so, the 900lb hedgehog in the room - is there enough source? i hear source from 0:00-0:05 directly, the chord progression at 0:05 is the same initially, and there's some instrumentation elements that map over (like the bass is close to but not exactly the original), so i'll call it 0:05-0:17. 0:30-0:53 for sure. 1:30-1:58 from the solo is pretty close. and the end section is all good, 2:22-2:45 (with 2:45 being the end of the track). that's 90/165 seconds, which is definitely over. so we're good there. the mix pops nice although i'd like the bass instrument to be more forward given that there's not a lot of unique instruments in the mix. i think that the adaptation feels great too - there's a lot of customization to the melody, which is needed since the original is only 25s long - and there's a lot of unique stuff that i didn't expect, like the chromatic ending. this is a fun one, nice work. YES

opens with some heavily filtered and effected synths handling the initial arpeggio. i like the shift in tempo as i think the slower tempo gives it more gravitas. there's some beefy bass synths and taiko used as well - the buzz on that bass synth is fantastic, i love it. the slower tempo allows for some more space in the articulated lines in the background too which is nice. the mix is pretty noisy with all the edge on the different synths chosen, and the bass's first overtone around 100hz is very boosted which makes it dense down low. there's a bit of a falloff/break and then we get another repetition of the initial arp and chord progression at 0:59. this sounds to my ears very similar to 0:23 but there's some subtle differences in the chord progression as it goes on. this probably could have been trimmed a bit so that we get to the melodic material that comes in at 1:35. there's a very loud and resonant pad through here that's crushing most of the background elements. the melody's in a bell-like pad that doesn't seem to have much ring to it so it's a little hard to trace as well. 2:33's really the first significant shift in the background elements for the entire track, and we get some high strings that have been brutalized. this progresses through to an outro that is mostly the initial arpeggiated instrument's release sustain automating back, and it's done. i really like the initial presentation of the arrangement - the buzzy bass, the heavily effected arpeggio, and eventually the limited percussion that comes in. i think it sounds pretty over-loud initially, but if anything that accentuates how distorted the elements are. but then it didn't do anything for several minutes =( there's no dynamic variation, and the extremely loud and pushed mix just accentuates that by crushing any possible dynamic contrast into sameness. it feels heavily compressed. i also found that by the 1:35 mark as we were getting close to the actual melody showing up that my ear was getting tired of the same bass, arp, and percussion elements since they'd played for nearly that entire time in a row. that was a golden opportunity to mix up the instrumentation a bit or at least freshen up the rhythmic elements of what was playing, but it's more of the same, and that doesn't change the entire rest of the piece. i like this concept a lot overall. i love that you managed to wait for 90s before bringing in any melodic elements and you focused so much on the backing elements so much. i love the highly complex effecting on the arpeggio and the bass's edge to the tone. however, even when the track isn't being repetitive (like the slight changes in chords between the first main phrase at 0:22 and the second at 1:00), it feels repetitive because nothing ever changes until halfway through the piece, and the balance at that point is way off. it's definitely possible i'm making perfect the enemy of good here, but i think that the mashed mix and lack of dynamics combined with a highly repetitive background (when that's what's carrying the work due to a lack of melodic content) puts this in the not-quite-there-yet range. i don't think it needs much to be stellar. NO

in listening to this entire thing with an open mind, i do hear where there's a few specific thematic references to the original track (1:05, 2:21 for example). there's also some highly transformative sections, like the repeated descending section in the bass line that occurs several places (example: 2:06), which i wouldn't have tabbed being from this without knowing the context but understand where you came from after reading it. however, most of the track isn't recognizable in the slightest. this isn't a matter of not understanding the serial representation of the set you're using as far as i can tell - it's just that most of this is unintelligible. what's the point of speaking in tongues if there's no one to interpret? there's some genuinely interesting ideas in here - 3:31 for example is a pretty ripping take on the initial descending melodic line, with the frenetic sfx in the background and the very fast (if extremely repetitive) drums. but there's no usage of song form anywhere in this, there's no real synth design, and for the most part the master is "same volume for everything throughout". it's more reminiscent of the Undertale flowey fight's inanity, but that was far more defined and intentional than this is. this comes across as wild musings more than an intentionally crafted work. ultimately this falls short of several elements of the submission standards, but 4.3. the most: sorry, but this isn't something that we can post here. NO OVERRIDE

will did such a good job with this theme. it always felt a lot to me like the music that's used in the Victory at Sea documentaries i watched as a teenager. opens with the silly hyper-jingoistic loudspeaker notifications and the descending motif in a few synths. the beat drops at 0:33 and the guitar is an immediate highlight - i almost wish it was fuller and more in-front so i could hear it more. there's loads of stuff coming in and out in this opening section which is nice. first break is at 1:29 and features a lot of really fun vocal clips that really fit the style well. 2:18 is a new section with more of a beat focus initially. i admit in this section i miss the strong chord movement of the original, but i understand the genre generally doesn't have a ton of chord changes. the section that started at 3:28 kind of mirrors the original in that it starts to back off the intensity and allow the melody to carry it a bit. there's some more sfx and it's done. this is, as expected, a great adaptation of a great theme. the mix is tight and the loudspeaker sfx are just ridiculous enough to fit into over-the-top neofascist tone of the game, although i wish there'd been a comment about citizenship in there. there's a few points where i felt like i'd rather have had more beef in the melodic line, but the overall style here meshes well and does a good job navigating a lot of different soundscapes while feeling like a singular whole. nice work. YES edit: 3/6: i heard this several weeks ago but never put my updated response in here. the boosted guitar is a huge positive here, and several other synth leads are also brought up to give them more body. 3:30 is an example of a spot that sounds a lot stronger now. nice work! this is way stronger now.

i've owned risk of rain for over a decade but never listened to the OST - clearly i've been missing out. opens with some percs and guitar chords. when the bass comes in, it's in the same range as the guitar, which is problematic from a clarity standpoint. there's also a heavy delay effect on it, which is a fun sound, but makes it tough to hear the differences between the two instruments. some EQ work there could help, as could changing the voicing of the guitar chords. bass line occasionally gets out of time a bit, as does the lead riff at 0:48. track coasts a bit until we get some new chords around the minute mark, and then the fast section at 1:14. i like the intensity in the drums here for sure, but the rhythm guitar sounds super flat and indistinct. it's hard to really hear anything that's going on, and the very simple guitar lead with no intensity increase from the earlier section doesn't help much either. the track goes through a quiet section and a fast section again, and then back to the B section of the slower section. there's some sound choices here that i don't think work - everything's very indistinct and dull. there's a short rhythmic section to end it, and it's done. there's a real early darren korb vibe going on here. if i heard this song while playing Bastion as it is right now, i'd think it was mixed poorly, but it wouldn't have stood out. but i like the rhythmic focus alongside the groove. i think right now none of the instruments sound good in terms of mix - the drums are lacking punch, the bass's delay effect and EQing make it unclear, the rhythm guitar parts are super indistinct and poorly mixed (at least double-track them!), and the lead guitar sounds very blase and simple. some better EQing and some padding instrumentation would do wonders to fill out what's going on, as well as probably changing the octave that the rhythm guitar parts are based around so it's not clashing with the bass. beyond that, you'll want to identify ways to add more ear candy to the arrangement. right now it's very straightforward in that each instrument never really changes what it's doing. personalizing the arrangement more with drum fills, interstitial riffs in the lead guitar, etc. will help a lot with making the arrangement feel like it's progressing and moving somewhere instead of standing still. i really dig the vibe, but tbh it sounds too garagey and more like a scratch or demo track right now. a cleaner mix and a more fleshed-out arrangement will really help a lot. NO

Instruments used were electronic drums and electric guitars & basses. All instruments were played & recorded live by me. No sequencing was used. Some potentially questionable aspects of the song were deliberate stylistic choices. I have my suspicions about what may need to be changed or improved, but for now I'll let the music speak for itself. I welcome any questions, criticism, advice, and other feedback. Games & Sources Original Track: Tropic of Capricorn -- Original Composer: Chris Cristodolou2024 Game Details: Risk of Rain, 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_of_Rain Game Soundtrack: https://chrischristodoulou.bandcamp.com/album/risk-of-rain

opens with a big wall of synths and most notably a really unique snare sound. there's no real movement on the synths or anything and they're pretty static, although they do follow the chord progression. a bit of a shuffle works into the beat around the 0:27 mark. melodic material enters in the bass at 0:44, and around here i noticed that the drums feel like they're using the same few tom fills every four and eight bars. this is really obvious in this section because of how static the background is. we do get some more fuzz on the lead synth over time and i like that movement and change a lot - but the drums doing the same thing the whole time really becomes obvious and irritating after a while. there's some offbeat material coming in around 2:05 and that's a nice little added touch. i think there was more room for movement and interstitial stuff between 0:44 and 2:30 or so when the initial melodic material reaches the peak but i did like the big change to the synth over time. there's a bridge with some gated stuff, and then it builds into a big melodic section at 2:55. the drums here lack some punch but i like the synth lead and the fuzz on everything. i sort of assumed this track was coming to a close here and then realized there was another three minutes of material! so the change at 3:38 was welcome. again the drums are on autopilot which is really irritating once you notice it. this section goes on longer than i'd expect it given how repetitive the melodic material. there's a fill that kinda sounds like dragging your finger down the keyboard like a gliss, and then a neat bridge that features a lot of gated elements. i think there was some opportunity here to really get different with the synth work, but it stays fairly static in the section itself. 5:03 brings in some organ, but again it's just going through the chord progression and doesn't add a ton during the section. we get the gliss tom fill again, and a bit of a callback to the opening in the chords. the snare here is super echoey as a transitional element and while i didn't care for the sound i did like the use of it to hallmark a change. my issues here are twofold. one is that it's a very long track but doesn't really have a lot of content. each major section feels like it could have been halved in terms of time and it'd make it a much more succinct statement overall. my second issue ties into this and that's that there's not a lot movement in each section. there's a lot of autopilot drums and repeated fills, and usually what you hear in the first few seconds of a section is what you're going to hear for the next 30s+. that's boring =( the overall static nature of the arrangement method really is highlighted in how repetitive the melodic material is - if it'd been a more active line with more chords, it wouldn't have been obvious, but the original's super repetitive as it is. i think overall the track sounds good and i can hear what's going on. for the most part, the synth choices are fine (although i don't like the reliance on choices with no or very limited movement over sustains). and i like the pop of the drums, i just wish they had more power to them in a few places. i'd need to see a lot more complexity to each section - or a significant trimming of it - before this would be at the bar for me. NO

Yet another remix of DOOM. I'm submitting 1 or 2 more remixes from the series in the upcoming weeks since I haven't seen any of these and a new Doom game is coming in May 15th of this year, I hope this date can be taken in consideration for OCR release pipeline if this or other of my arrangements are accepted. I already saw "Dark Toxin" was accepted. Thanks guys! For this one I fixed the tempo at 88BPM (the original is almost the same) The genre is an Industrial Rock/Dark Synth mood that really fits the pace of the song maybe even some mid tempo at the last quarter of the track. Think about a blend between Rammstein (without the guitars), Powerglove, and Rezz but less aggressive. I hope you'll enjoy it. Games & Sources Doom II. Robert C. Prince. - The Demon's Dead (1994)

opens with some really fun sound design elements, and quickly brings in the molduga rhythm in the bassline. i really liked the distorted synth that builds up through 0:45. there's an extended drop before the beat finally hits. 1:26 is a great feel - i love the variety of stuff going on, lots of filter LFOs. it gets pulled back around 1:52 for some new feels, and i think the timing was good for this. some altered chords around the 2:10 helped mix it up. 2:40 is a nice recap of the molgera stuff and includes some variety in the melodic line for good measure. i liked that the bass finally switches from 16ths to instead be quarters at 3:07 as a way to mix it up a bit right before it's done. there's a not quite fade for the ending, and it's done. as expected, this sounds ridiculously good and is a banger. i don't have any complaints other than i wish it was already on the front page! YES

Artist Notes - Treyt "Who is Chimpazilla?" My first interaction with Chimpa was through the Starfox album project headed by DarkFlameWolf. Chimpa was the dedicated mastering engineer for the album, and though I'd seen the profile picture around and knew she was responsible enough to master an entire album, I didn't have much of an opinion on the character. Lack of information really. That changed when Chimpa got around to mastering my 2nd submission, and I had some questions about general feedback I’d gotten 2nd hand from DarkFlameWolf. From this point on, I got to know the ball of endless positivity that is Chimpazilla. Talented, great ear for production, and more of a Zelda fan than thezeldafreak on Xanga (that was me in 2007 haha) We eventually decided we liked the cut of each other’s gib, and put out some feelers with what I can only describe as an art trade with a twist. She had a psytrance work-in-progress (WIP) that hadn’t seen love for months. I had a psytrance track WIP track I’d just conceptualized. We both liked the other’s WIP. …so we traded! The track I gave her was a remix of the Helldivers 2 theme. Will, the composer for Helldivers 2, has been a part of the OCR community, and with the success of the game and his soundtrack, we both agreed that paying homage would be a pretty cool move. You should check that out if you get the chance. The track she gave me was this: A mashup of both Molgera’s theme from Zelda: The Wind Waker, and Molduga’s theme from Breath of the Wild. Both of the original tracks mean a lot to me, from the terrifying battle in the Wind Temple as an adolescent, to the surprising (yet significantly easier due to age and experience) battle in the Gerudo Desert as I made my way toward the rampaging Vah Rudania. Both tracks were also produced by Hajime Wakai, 15 years apart! Her track didn’t need much. There was a lot of love already in it, and she’d already done some great sound design. Outside of my collab with RidleySnipes on DRWNXD, this was quite possibly the easiest collaboration I’ve ever been a part of! I was very happy to contribute to this piece, and I hope you enjoy listening to this track as much as I enjoy playing it back! -------- Artist Notes: Chimpazilla "Who is Treyt?" Before I dive into my writeup it needs to be mentioned that the "chicka chickas" in this mix were recorded by Emunator. Thanks Wes, they are perfect! I will attempt to keep this short, lest this become a meeting of the Mutual Admiration Society (which this definitely is, but I digress). I recognized Trevor's producer skills from his submissions that I voted on, but I didn't think much more about him until I mastered his Star Fox track "Initiate Code Blue." That track is so badass and it melted my face in the best possible way; that track got my attention 100%. When he reached out to me for feedback on a different master, we got to talking and I brazenly asked him if he'd collab with me. He agreed, and two days later we were off and running with the Helldivers 2 wip he had started, and my Molgeraduga wip that I had shared with him. We had a little stem-exchange party. After working with Trevor on these two tracks over the past two months, I now know that in addition to being immensely creative and talented, he's also a genuinely nice, funny, intelligent, witty, trusting and trustworthy guy. He's right, this was an easy and joyous collab. Regarding Hyrulian Helminths: I love Zelda games, as anyone who knows me for five minutes or longer can attest. I love the themes from both of these worm-boss battles, and they seemed to mesh well together in my head, so I laid out a psytrance track with both themes intertwining together, and the arrangement took on life as I continued to write. It was still fairly bare though, and I kind of ran out of ideas on it. After I passed the stems to Trevor, the track took on even more life with the amazing amount of detail, layers, textures, ear candy, and sheer badassery that he added. To say that I was impressed with what he did is a massive understatement. Trevor said initially "I have never done psytrance" which greatly confuses me, because he does psy like an absolute boss. Our Helldivers 2 remix, also psytrance, will prove this out even further (to be submitted next). We hope you enjoy Hyrulian Helminths. There will be more Chimp-Treyt collabs, that's for sure! Games & Sources Games: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Molgera Battle) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Molduga Battle) Also appears in Tears of the Kingdom: Molduga Battle. Composer: Hajime Wakai - Molduga Battle & Molgera Battle Molduga Battle: Molgera Battle: From Chimpazilla, for Liontamer: Hyrulian Helminths - source use breakdown: --------------------------------------------------- Sources: Molduga: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lA6KS6HXDM Molgera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlF0-Qs2xkI Sections of sources used: Molduga A 0:00-0:12 Molduga B 0:12-0:25 Molgera A (motif) 0:12-0:19 Molgera B (motif) 0:19-0:26 Molgera bells 0:06-0:11 Molgera trumpets 0:11-0:13 --------------------------------------------------- Remix: 0:01-0:14 Molduga A filtered, background 0:14-0:31 Molduga A 0:31-0:35 Molgera A 0:35-0:38 Molduga A 0:38-0:41 Molgera A 0:41-0:48 Molduga A 0:48-0:59 Molgera B and trumpets 0:59-1:12 Molduga A filtered, background 1:12-1:25 Molduga A (with Molgera A from 1:15-1:19 and from 1:21-1:25) 1:25-1:39 Molduga B section 1:42-1:45 Molgera trumpets 1:49-1:52 Molgera trumpets 2:04-2:08 Molgera trumpets 2:09-2:12 Molgera A 2:15-2:19 Molgera A 2:22-2:26 Molgera A 2:43-2:47 Molgera A 2:56-3:00 Molgera A with cool variation 3:17-3:20 Molgera A with cool variation 3:23-3:27 Molgera A 134 seconds, track is 216 seconds long, 62% source use

i would actually say exactly the same thing about where i am right now as a musician =) opens with some arpeggiated elements and the concept of a beat. we start getting the funkiness that i associate with damon's music soon after. 0:22 has some other instrumentation coming in - there's some really fun filtered attacks on a lot of these synths and that causes some neat soundscapes to pop up here and there. melody starts in a woody vibe sound at 0:44, and it's a little far back and to the left so it's harder to hear. reducing the vibrato on it too will help it pop forward in the mix more - kind of like the wind instrument that comes in after it (i think i have that vst also, it's a classic!). this section's a touch loud, i think, and everything feels a bit squeezed but just a bit. fun fill going into the drop at 1:50, and this leads into another recap of the melodic material. 2:15 brings in the B theme, and the transition here is a little sudden. this might have been an opportunity to change up the drums some more. 2:58's another transition, this time to a more muted feel as the track starts to wind down. some sound design here or even a cymbal on the transition would have helped. the ending is similarly unprepared and just kind of happens, which is a real bummer as i think it really would have benefitted from a real ending. it's fun hearing how damon's style has changed over the years, and also hearing what's stayed the same. i really like the focus on fun drums and unique textures. the lack of an ending is a big deal for me, but i think what else is here is enough to carry this over the bar. YES 2/2 edit: adding in some more transitional elements and a real ending makes this so much better. bravo. still a yes but much stronger.

the limit on length is to prevent someone from submitting a 25-minute EP in continuous form. 7 minutes isn't a hard limit - i think we have a 13-minute remix? it's just hard to write long tracks well, so we generally advise against it. opens with some harp and very light textures. i appreciate how much time is taken and the amount of rubato - i'd still have loved for the harp parts to be live so they've got more push-pull, but what's here is nuanced and carefully rendered. the texture at 1:21 is really nice. still surprising how well musescore does for representing the instrumentation when care is taken with it. there's a chord at 1:51 that i can't visualize what's going on, but the subsequent resolution is really nice (albeit a touch long). 2:18 again demonstrates really nice patience with the approach and has some really great scoring and voicing. 3:07 has a huge orchestral crescendo that lasts a solid 20s - again, great job with the scoring to avoid sustain-itis and make the notes being played all matter. there's some really fun chord structures in here as well. i'm also struck how you've managed to go like five minutes without really touching the actual iconic elements of the theme, and it's still so obvious what you're arranging. 6:08 is where you really dig in the spurs and get after the melodic line we've all been waiting for. the timpani here are pretty boomy, and 6:28's chord is a bit sketchy with what's put in the lower voices. and finally, after over seven minutes, we finally get the recognizable melody line. there's a hard dynamic cut at 7:22 that's pretty obviously artificial. we get a final resolution and sustain, and it's done. this is superbly handled and excellently scored - easily the best example of proper orchestral scoring i've heard in months. extremely enjoyable approach. there's some nitpicks here and there, but within the scope of the work this is easily over the bar. nice job. YES

opens with some wide synths. the kick rhythm is a little confusing as there's no beat here to hang your hat on, so it's not clear where the down beat is initially. the melody comes in at 0:24, and you're right, it is questionable. polytonality is a technique i recognize, but it really doesn't work here - it just sounds off-key outright. 0:49 is where the track seems to be more settled. there's a recap of the beginning with some low synth blurbs at 1:13, and those synths kind of step on each other since they're all in the same freq range. the beat picks up at 1:38 and this has a pretty neat vibe once it gets trucking. i'll admit i don't really hear the original in this section. 2:27's lead synth doesn't really make a ton of sense to the rest of what's going on around this section, and it's so highly embellished i definitely wouldn't have caught that it's a reference to the opening without calling it out. right after the main riff here, the track just continues hammering that one note for a pretty long time without significant adds. the melody comes back finally - again, pretty heavily ornamented - and then gets some weird notes around the 3:28 point before the track is suddenly done. so right off the bat - i think that the arrangement has legs. you've got some really creative concept work behind each part of the track (to be honest, probably too much - if a book is needed to understand a 4-minute piece, you're not doing enough as the arranger). there's a lot of padding that can be trimmed, and you need to work on transitions and the opening sections so that they're approachable and understandable. that said, the instrumentation isn't close to being there. if this is supposed to be using some retro sound chip, ok, but evaluating this as a pickup piece of music, the audio quality isn't up to par. there's buckets of free stuff that's better across the board out there, and separately there's a lot of mixology you can do to get better sounds out of the instruments you're choosing. i think that some serious time in the workshop discord would help a ton on this, and i think that some time spent finding ways to get better sound quality from all of your instruments is helpful too. you can do nostalgic with real synths and make it sound like a modern song still. NO

really strikingly beautiful scoring on this original. opening broken chords make sense given the nature of the original. the additional left hand movement at 1:01 is really nice as well. the transition at 1:33 was a little clumsy, but i see where it came from the original. we get the vocal line at 1:52 with a similar backing rhythm and voicing to the opening. there's a fuller section that covers the culmination of the exciting part from the original. after this, we start to get into some recap material. at this point we've gone through the song mostly in a straight line, so i liked that this is starting to recap and explore a bit more. the big hit at 3:39 is rich and initially well-voiced, but it does emphasize that this track probably needs a bit of dynamic compression so that it's not such a huge range. i did not care for how basic the backing line was at 3:53 and felt that should have had more interesting rhythms or voicings given the amount of space in this section. 4:20's the last big blow of the piece, and this also isn't super exciting in what's being played until the big culmination at the end of it - again, i'd have liked to hear either a more complex line than just some chords being comped, or some adaptation of melodic material in there. after this is a very delicate representation of the melody with a beautiful set of arpeggios to back it, and then it's done. the original is really stellar with a beautiful melody line, and you do a great job relaying that throughout. i would have liked to hear a bit more complexity and care with the harmonic accompaniment in a few places, but what's here is well-handled. nice work. YES

Hi OCR, Here is a piano arrangement of the song theme of Last Story, composed by Nobuo UEMATSU. I’ve discovered this OST by curiosity about composer on his works, after his collaboration on the Final Fantasy series. I was really touched by this song, so emotional and sad. I’ve tried to respect this in my arrangement, alternating some soft parts and flights, but keeping restrain in the whole piece. I wanted to announce the main melodic line from the first notes (with some variation on the melody). The following part is based on the intro (part 2). Thought for a string orchestra with long notes, it wasn’t evident to adapt in piano. I’ve taken some liberties with this part to give a piano playing more natural. After that, the song starts with the real melody and a rhythm clearer. It was more natural to play this in piano. Enjoy! Guillaume Breakdown Part 1: 0'00 soft (Toberu Mono 1’12 -> 1’50 ) Part 2: 0'30 (TM 0’00 -> 0’50 ) A) 0’30 Soft B) 1’00 Arpeggios C) 1’33 (TM 0’50->1’12) Part 3 :1’52 (TM 1’12 -> 1’50) A) 1’52 : Soft B) 2’19 : Rhythm Part 4: 2'44 More animated (TM 1’50 -> 2’20) Part 5: 3'18 (TM 1’12 -> 1’50) A) 3’18 : Arpeggios B) 3’40 : Rhythm Part 6: 3'50 Culminant point of the piece (TM 2’20 -> 3’00) Part 7: 4'20 Rhythm (TM 3’00 -> 3’30) Part 8: 4’50 Soft (TM 2’20 -> 3’00) Games & Sources Real Name: Guillaume SAUMANDE Game & Songs: Last Story & Toberu Mono (The Flying One) Composer: Nobuo UEMATSU