prophetik music

original has a chord progression and not a ton else. intro has a similar energy and quickly builds into a bigger rock approach than the original. bass is present but hard to hear under everything else. there's a bit of a break right away for the drum riffs but then it's back to a guitar-led approach. the sustains in the lead guitar that start at 1:16 are similar to the stuff being played in the original, but quickly shift to doing their own thing, and then at 1:50 they switch to the riff in the original (1:17 in YT video) that drops off at 2:17. 2:33 is similar to about 1:49 in the original. the track grooves through a few different iterations of the original tom riff before getting lead guitars again at 3:30 for a solo part and then some harmonized riffs. 4:40 the track drops off a lot, and adds some sfx and pads - this is the section that is most reminiscent of the original. this grinds through a few measures and then fades out. overall, this is mastered fairly well. the bass isn't very present, but the mix never gets muddy or hard to hear what's going on, and the lead parts are handled well. everything is performed at a consistent level. the leads get a little too loud occasionally but that'd be my main critique there. this is not an easy original to remix, in my opinion. there's not a ton of melodic content and it mostly relies on percussive elements to give it the vibe. i think this remix is a pretty good adaptation of the original. it's recognizable and approachable, it's fun to listen to, and it sounds pretty good from a mastering perspective. nice work. YES

intro is definitely cribbed straight from the original. the beat hits right at the 30s mark, and it cycles through some filtered builds until we get the actual melodic content at 0:53. interestingly enough, i don't get a ton of bass content outside the kick, so it sounds like kick/bass and then a bunch of much higher synths. there's some falling action at 1:42 and it noodles through the initial riff quite a bit with other bits thrown in. there's some really fun sound design in this section. at 2:32 the main ensemble is back in, and after a bit it goes through the main melodic content for a while before another dropoff at 3:15, this time with new noodles so no copy - nice work. 4:00 hits with a full ensemble playing the main melodic content from the start and it's a nice payoff. after this section, it cooks through a slow instrumental fade as different elements start to drop over time. i think i would have been fine if it ended at 5:00, but the remaining 23 seconds serve as a fine sendoff. this is an obvious pass. tons of arrangement evident, lots of variety in the approach, it sounds good, and the synths work. nice job. YES

some mega sausage in the waveform. intro is super spiky, i like that. the initial beat is funky too which is fun. the beat drops out at 0:41, and there's an extended build into the first mega hit at 1:08. it's really loud there! totally slammed approach. i can hear everything, at least. there's a dropback after that and it goes back to the same thing as the intro for a few minutes. i don't get why you'd want to repeat the exact same thing wholesale - why not mix it up at least a little? there's some variation at 3:05 like LT said but it's still the same as before. if i wanted to listen to the same track again, i'd just repeat it. OCR used to allow for a lot of repetition in tracks, but that was like fifteen years ago. what's here isn't acceptable based on our current bar =/ unfortunately, i have to evaluate this as being a track that's under two minutes long, since that's all that's here, with the other 50% being copypasta. with that two minutes, what you have is really neat and i think it's a great listen. there's several distinct sections, you've got some fun synth and sfx work going on, the initial beat is really great. i think the part starting at 1:08 is too loud, but at least it's all audible. it's too bad then that half the track is repeated, because if it was another 30s longer with some other content - even original - i'd probably pass it. NO edit 10/11: so 1:56 is the pivot point to the second section. the initial part with the strings is the same, as is the initial filtered element after it. starting at about 2:37, the build is much different, and then the beat under the main synth at 2:51 is different with new breaks and sfx. the following section and outro is the same and it still doesn't really have an ending. i am leaning towards this still not being enough different - if this wasn't jordan, would we be passing it? - so i'm switching to a ?. UNSURE edit 1/8: if this wasn't jordan, i wouldn't be unsure. i'd say no. so i need to say no here. NO

i like the initial synth used. the beat drops around 0:30 and has a real 2001 OCR vibe to it, right down to the spit snare used. there's a break at 1:28, showing off more of the verby pads used along the chippy arpeggiator that's going for most of the track. 2:19 really starts the build, and the melodic content shows back up at 2:34. finally, after almost a quarter of the track (maybe a bit of that could have been trimmed?), the whole thing's together again at 3:04. the beat and synth work isn't anything crazy here but the payoff sounds great. i liked the consistent usage of dropping the beat for a beat here and there to emphasize specific melodic elements. from a mastering perspective, this isn't anything super advanced, like i said before, which gives it a real oldschool sound. it certainly doesn't get in the way of the arrangement which is good enough for me. this was a fun track! i really enjoyed the payoff chorus especially. YES

intro is fisherman's horizon with some vox pads, and then a quick jump to the north mountain theme. there's a heavy rumbling synth under this section that's pretty muddy. 0:41 has some more stuff enter, and it's pretty off-balance again. there is a lot of low-end rumble and so it's hard to hear what's going on outside the string lead. what i can hear, though, has some neat interweaving of the themes of the two tracks, which is impressive given how different of vibes they are. 1:30 is a significant build again, to a huge peak at 1:43. i'll note that the track just barely makes it to two minutes in duration due to an extended hold on the last note and the 12s or so of intro that's cribbed straight from the start of fisherman's horizon. this is...probably not enough of a complete work to fit the criteria of a remix. there's a surprising amount of work interweaving the melodic contents of the two songs in such a short time, but the muddiness of the master covers most of that up, and it's just too short for me. this needs another pass on the mastering side and probably more content in the middle before i'd count it. NO

this soundtrack was always so confusing to me. i love the jazz but it's all played so ahead of the beat, really never sat right to me. some sfx to get it going. initial vibe is primarily piano and bass, with various other instruments layering in over time. once the drums get going around the 1 minute mark, this track starts to feel more cohesive. the guitar part is pretty quiet throughout and the bass is very present, which is an odd mixing choice. for example, in the big section at 1:42, i can barely hear the guitar the entire time, but the bass is clearly audible. there are also several times where the aforementioned bass isn't quite 100% on with the piano - it'll move to a new chord a half-beat before the keys do (like at 0:28 or 0:34). 2:42 is the first real break in the groove, with some big swells. 2:57 the beat comes back, and the guitar here is so noisy that it's hard to hear what's going on outside of the lead string part. the bass solo is great as expected, and the guitar solo sounds good too. 3:53 the melodic content comes back and then we get a...theremin solo? i can dig it! melodic content comes back and it blows through to the end. from a mastering perspective, the mix is very dense between about 50hz and 250hz - there's a ton of presence there from a lot of instruments, and it makes the mix sound very tiring and heavy despite the light, forward-driving approach the beat has. i think there's a ton of room for more active EQing of individual parts here, as well as trimming the fat on the freq-expensive instruments like the rhythm guitar and the bass. i have mentioned a lot of critiques of this mix, mostly from a mastering perspective. i think the arrangement is fine but not anything really transcendent, and i think the mastering overall is not great but not terrible. so i'm pretty ambivalent about it. overall it's played well and it's a fun track idea, so i think i'd lean towards the side of posting it. YES

interesting idea for this. kalimba is uniquely suited to the original's approach. i like the hybrid electro/organic approach too. combining traditionally electronic elements like the spit snare, hard volume cuts, and the synth bass with super-organic instruments like a kora and kalimba is great. there are a few obvious loops in the percussion that were overused (the timbale loop at 0:56 for example). the iconic arpeggio is only used occasionally, which is a fine idea to have it weave in and out, but there's not much nuance in how it's used (similar to the aforementioned loop). either it's playing or not, with no dynamics around how it's brought in and out. it's like flipping a switch or pressing a button to get something to play. it doesn't help that the timbale loop has more verb than the very low-reverb rest of the track, so it sounds distinctly like it's in a different space. the melody finally comes in at 1:45, and at this point the background's been the same for almost two minutes. it's nice to get the melodic content in, but i'd have expected some variance at this point in the track beyond turning on and off percussion loops. there's some variance to the melody at 2:30 to fit the instrument, which i think is fine. the melody is done at roughly 3:03, and the track just loops through the backing percussion for another 20 seconds until it's done. AA is a patient original, with the melodic material not coming in until about a third of the way through the piece. you do a similar thing here where you wait pretty long to bring in the melody, allowing the chord progression and arpeggiated elements carry the work until then. i'd say though that this exposes both the heavy use of looping material (and machine-gun repeated notes in your sampler) as well as the lack of overall delta in your track. it doesn't go anywhere. the groove initially is neat, but it is the same throughout, and your variances are exclusively with very prominent elements turning on and off with no volumization to make their swell and fade an actual swell and fade. i think this is a neat tech demo. i don't think it's ready for the site yet. NO

mix is a sausage from the looks of it. it's a super aggressive opening, and there is zero bass presence. it peaks at about 130hz , there's much less between there and 40hz, and then it falls off. i can't hear the bass or the bass element of the kick at all. it's like it was hard cut - the bass shows up when the fundamental's above 130hz and disappears below that. so this is a hard no, there's something wrong with the mastering that needs to be fixed. probably need to listen on less bass-amplifying headphones. intro is immediately fear factory, and reminds me of magfest performances with the rolling gait of the track and the high-energy style. the melodic content comes in after a quick drop at 0:42, and the dual guitars with melody and harmony sound good (although harmony part is a bit louder than lead). i wouldn't mind hearing more stereo separation between those two parts. there's a drop at 1:23 to give some space, and after a few ensemble elements we're into a solo section at 1:43 or so. the melody's back at 2:20, and this is roughly the same as the first time through the melodic content at 0:42. i'd prefer there wasn't the same level of copypasta for this section. it rolls through the melodic content and then just kind of ends. after the extended intro, i'd have expected more on the end of this track. the mastering is definitely a hard no for me, but the arrangement probably needs some work still. i like the first few minutes, but repeating the same melodic approach was a let-down as was the ending. i'd love to see more interpretation there. NO

outside of a few tiny spikes, this has 4-5db of headroom. extended fade-in, as expected based on the description. the pad used has a very long tail, at least six seconds based on the duration of chord change overlap. around 1:15 i start to hear some monophonic elements under the pad but they're very quiet. the chord patterns may indeed mirror freya's theme, but they aren't particularly apparent if so. the chord at roughly 3:00 is pretty aggressively discordant. this goes on through obtuse chord changes until the 6 minute mark when it starts to fade out. interesting that the only rhythmic element in the entire piece shows up at the end there. there is nothing here that ties to freya's theme in a fashion i can identify without a breakdown from the artist. this is just a pile of (pretty heavily filtered) pads playing various chords. maybe i need a planetarium to grasp it further. edit: it's not obvious with my initial writeup, but i want to call out that i actually really enjoy the track as a conceptual backing work to something else. ultimately though we're a remix site, so if i can't tie it to freya's theme, i can't vote yes ultimately. if there's something i'm missing, i'm happy to reconsider. NO

headdy's soundtrack is so bonkers. this is an excellent genre to use for it. high-speed intro complete with sfx, and a very fast BPM on the main track when it gets cooking. breakcore influence is super obvious right off the bat. drums regularly are way louder than the melodic material, which is somewhat a genre element but also is objectively bad for a video game soundtrack arrange community. specifically the bitcrushing and timestop elements wind up totally annihilating everything else. there's a break at 1:52, and this features some very batty timing elements in the drums. the second half of the original is clearly at play here. 2:30 gives us a downbeat again occasionally, and this progresses through another drop and pump at 3:06. it goofs around a bit until we hit the actual last blow at 3:48, which is at truly mind-melting speed. despite the waveform being fatter than a wisconsin bratwurst, this is actually way more balanced than the first part. there's a final hit and then like fifteen seconds of fadeout sfx, and it's time to breathe again. i was not sold in the first section and really got into it by the end. i think that if this goes back the balance in the first minute and a half needs to be redone, but other than that there's a really fun arrangement with absolutely bonkers drum work going on here. nice job creating a convert. YES

fun initial groove. there's a bit of machine-gun affect on a few of the instruments but it's some neat sounds. 0:31's where the melodic material comes in the first time. the lead instrument is pretty obviously fake in an uncanny-valley way, but i like how you've played around with the melody a bit to make it more instrument. the solo guitar at 1:34 doesn't really sound like it's in the same place sound-wise - i think among other things it's EQed very differently, and also doesn't have any verb on it, so it sticks out. 1:55 sounds much like 0:42, enough that i'll call it copypasta until the countermelodic element comes in. then it very suddenly ends with no prep. i think this one's not quite there, but it's more of a sum of issues thing than any one glaring element. i did not like the solo guitar in the middle at all - it was alternately sharply EQed and meandering in notes, and never seemed to fit. the groove is the same throughout and never changes. the lead does interesting things but is used in a non-idiomatic way and feels pretty fake throughout. lastly, almost a third of the track is copy/pasted as well. i think these add up to a not-quite-there. i might be making perfect the enemy of good but i think these issues really bring down the overall product. NO

not quite 5db of headroom. also about 20s of padding after the fadeout. intro bells and pad sound nice. initial drum groove is fine, although the bass in the intro is almost inaudible. the groove hits at 0:18, and the drums sound pretty rough. there's a lot of bass content in the snare, the hats occasionally pop forward in the mix like they're from a different kit, and the kick has a ton of really boomy head noise like it's from an arena rock kit. i'd spend some time crafting the sound on that kit more so it's not so big. from an arrangement perspective, MW's correct in saying it's very repetitive and much the same throughout. there's some ways to improve that, including adding additional elements, varying your instrumentation throughout, altering chords, and messing with the melodic material itself. any of those changes would make a huge boost in the overall level of the mix. NO

my original review commented on the extremely hot mastering and overall short amount of development. this is still heavily compressed, it just has the limiter's max turned down. the intro has a ton of crushing going on in the orchestral instruments. the section with the actual melodic material sounds better - the bass is a bit loud, but the overall balance is better and it is still a fun vibe. the section at 1:23 is better, but the sidechain-adjacent pads are late and sound on the beat rather than off which is kind of a funny mistake. 2:08's build is nice and exciting, and the actual hit at 2:24 is again a solid groove. 2:41's tempo change and key change is a good idea to mix it up a bit, and the continuing accelerando into the end is high-energy and forward-focused. the ending feels a little janky due to the way that deceleration affects groove, but i get what you're going for. i agree with MW that overall there's just one section of melodic material repeated, with slight overlays in each one. there needs to be more development of the arrangement beyond just changing the overall key and adding sfx on top. this is indeed a lot better however than the first entry. NO

i love that every modern FF game has a track like "intruders", right down to the choked triangle. intro is patient. there's a lot more in the right ear than the left until maybe 0:24. the big toms are also super boomy and have what sounds like a ton of distortion to them - it's not super clear if that's intentional. we get some more normal drums at 0:48 and it's still crunchy, and it's still imbalanced between the two ears. there's some melodic content in the pianos at 1:12, but we finally get a real lead instrument at 1:36 when the guitar comes in. there's a big break at 2:00 after this, and then we get a moody, intense build at 2:25. this is really rumbly and didn't sound clear for a solid 15 seconds. the guitar that comes in at 2:47 is well-played. it however doesn't really change in volume so it eventually gets drowned out. 3:36 is also hard to hear what's 'important' and what's 'background', and it's still really hard-panned in an uncomfortable way. the rhythm guitar that comes in at 4:00 is extremely treble-heavy and sounds truly bad. there's just a lot going on and it's hard to hear what's what in that section. there's an outro that starts at 4:24 or so and then it's done without a real settling tone or chord. the mastering here isn't very consistent. i think the remix itself is fine, albeit not as varied as past remixes by these two. there's just a lot of mud and a lot of elements that are not volumized appropriately. the hard panning throughout is a serious turnoff too, that'd have been enough for me to say no by itself. this needs a significant EQ and volume pass, and all panning to be reduced by half if not more. NO edit: intro is still balanced a little right-heavy. there's still a lot of crunch but it's more obvious that it's intentional. 2:25 is still really rumbly but has obviously had a lot of rolloff, so that may be an artifact of my headphones. guitar at 2:47 is better balanced, and 3:36 is way more balanced than before. 4:00's rhythm guitar is now almost inaudible but it's certainly nowhere near as bad as before, so that's good. there's some sounds that sound like audio artifacts in the outro, but they're consistent, so i'm assuming they're not unintentional. the lack of an ending chord is addressed by the detuning. this is above the bar now. thank you for making revisions. YES

interesting stutter effect on the opening section. the intentional non-tonality initially is a neat idea. the build into 0:59 was a neat faux build - i really didn't expect it to delay as long as it did. there's a real underground-y kick that comes in at 1:13 and progresses it forward to a big hit at 1:39 with an acid bassline under it, and it's really cooking there. that's a neat moment. there's some more weird vocoding, some choppy drums, and lots of aural exploration in various directions until we get more sustained elements at 2:48 with the kick and bassline coming back. 3:44's sliced drums under really detuned arps was an interesting idea. 4:07's driving beat is again great, but admittedly the vocal elements in this section and previous sections felt pretty thin even considering their background status. there's some really neat swoopy sfx before the kick/bassline comes back in at 5:01. this keeps cooking for a while ("cover and simmer for ten minutes") until around 5:50 when other effects become the foreground, and we wind down over time as vocal elements take us out. as usual, this is a dense, sfx-heavy track with a lot of exploration (tbh almost too much) and a ton of variety in aural elements. it's certainly the most different take on FLWV that i've ever heard, and it's a great addition to the community. YES

never heard Everything Connected before but i love it. intro is very slow with some sfx and intentional artifacting. the initial riff with the aug 4 from FF8 is in the keys after the first big hit at 0:48, with the subsequent progressions weaving in and out of that pattern. the clock sfx is a nice addition around the time motif. we get a beat at 2:02 after a neat transition that might be a little heavy on highs, but it's still ticking through until it finally hits after some great sidechain action at 2:27. around the 2:50 mark, we finally get the first red wings cameo that i've heard. there's a drop at 3:15 or so, and we start getting some more off-time content which is a neat addition. this entire section from like 3:30 onward is really intense, there's a ton going on but it mostly stays audible throughout. there's the breakdown-rebuild section mentioned above, which is pretty neat, and then we're back into the melodic content at 4:16. this is still mostly compression of time, but there's definitely some red wings content in there. 5:04 is the last big hit (with a touch of distortion, not sure it's intentional). there's some significant falling action after this section. 5:30 or so is a significant shift - it's way slower, the beat is much more plodding intentionally, and the vibe is totally different. 6:07 is kind of the beginning of the end - it's a very clear shift away from tempo sync, with a lot more flexibility as the track finishes out. there's some very languid red wings motivic stuff in here but it's pretty stretchy. i cannot believe you did this in one week. the breadth of complexity is nuts here. there's certainly a bit of crunch in the mastering occasionally, but the quality of content in this track is incredible. you should probably stop doing this kind of stuff for free. YES edit 11/7: no complaints here. this song is a triumph.

upbeat intro. there's a bunch of fun effects going on in the beginning that build up nice into the drop at 0:23. there's some voiceover at 0:40 that i wasn't really expecting, but that sounds ok. there's some singing that comes in at 0:53, and i agree that the singing line does not fit the chords going on underneath. the chorus here is Db Ab/C Eb/G Ab, with an F/A at 1:15 as a sparkle chord (secondary dominant, this is a V7/ii which is a clever idea) into ii V as the turnaround. so that's pretty straightforward and has some fun stuff, like stepping from Ab to A to Bb. from a melodic perspective, the first line over Db and Ab is fine because it's F and quickly descends in a scalar fashion to a C, which is fitting with the key (though sitting on the Db over the Ab/C isn't a great sound). it then goes back up to the F over the Eb/G, which doesn't work. This goes down to Eb and Db, and by the time it gets to Db, it's over the Ab again (fourth over a major chord does not work since it conflicts a half step away with the third of the chord, a C). "let me be your love" here works because it's settling on the Eb, which is the fifth. the second time through the chorus, the melodic material again starts on an F, but this time sits on the upper part of that, and does it in an adjacent key. the melody goes F Ab Gb F, which is fine if the key was Db, but being in Ab the Gb and F don't sound right. Gb isn't in Ab, that's the flatted 7 instead, and so it should probably be a G, and then the line resolves with an Ab/C under it on F which isn't part of that chord. it sits on the F over the Ab for a bit and then goes up to the A for the F/A, which would be good but it gets there before the F/A happens so it sounds like an A against an Ab chord. the last part, "let me be your love", is F to Ab which is fine over Bbm, but sounds weird over Eb (since F is the 9th and Ab is the 11th and against the G in the Eb chord). /wordvomit the rest is more of the same. i like the vocal flips that are applied throughout, i just wish they were in a different key entirely. it's even more exacerbated at 2:27 because you've got the highly chromatic melodic material with the lead singing that's not quite in the key again. i won't do an entire breakdown since i don't have time before work, but i'd love to hammer out some concepts with this over a call, kris, since i think there's a dope track here if you just pitch-shifted the entire background up a fourth. not even kidding. the backing parts are excellent and i like the back and forth between the voiceover and singing. i also think that a few slight changes would still keep the melodic material recognizable but maybe hide the chromaticism from the singing elements. this is such a good idea. but i'm on larry's side. the vocals don't fit the track at all, but they could! NO

been a minute since i've heard this original. there is significant clipping right off the bat, continuing throughout - i don't mind the distorted tone of the drums, but getting that effect via effects is preferable to just cranking it too loud. there's some fun interplay between the horns and the drum parts, but i'll say that the lack of verb at all on the horns makes them sound like they're in a totally different world from the drums. speaking of the drums, the hats sound like they're part of a different kit entirely than the snare, and the kick is very noisy and doesn't have a lot of beater tone so it's hard to tell exactly when it hits. the delay effect on the drum doesn't help it around that either, i feel strongly that that's really making it hard to understand what's going on. the kit overall has more of a garagey sound which doesn't really fit the way the brass and organs sound. beyond that, i can't say i like the organ you're using for the bass - it doesn't have any bass presence that i can hear, and just kind of exists down there without any real meat. the arrangement itself is a clever idea. it's hard to focus on one melodic instrument due to how loud the stabs and drums are, but there's some neat ideas and countermelodic material going on in the organ and guitar lead. the ending is sudden after all the back and forth. if you went through and removed the delay effects from the drums, tightened up the kick tone, reduced the volume of the horns by half, balanced the levels significantly so that the melodic instruments weren't at most the third-loudest instrument you could hear, and leveled out the verb throughout, i think you'd have a much more effective mix that'd be ready for workshopping in the forum or on discord. right now it's pretty disjointed and difficult to follow, and the mastering is all over the place. NO

initial vibe of the track is just perfect. jorito's very good at this style i wouldn't have minded the snare being a bit snappier personally. sirenstar's lower voice really fits this style well. 0:54's hit sounds great - assuming that's jorito's guitar playing, and it sounds great. there's some points where sirenstar's voice sounds overly pitch-adjusted - 1:08 and the line at 1:40 stick out. some formant modification can help with that a lot, but sometimes you just need to take another pass. there's a break at 2:01 that is well timed, and subsequently we get the sax solo. i think the sax needed more reverb here - it's a little too forward in the mix compared to, say, The Midnight which was mentioned as an inspiration. that'd help with some of the rough edges in the tone too. 3:45's payoff chorus is great. the higher notes added in this time around are a great payoff after a longer track. would have loved to hear that chorus twice in a row there instead of just once. after this is a fadeout ending. overall this is really fun! it's not quite as polished as some of jor's other submissions, but overall it's a fun take on the style and the concept. nice work. YES

what a crazy idea for a track. the victory theme is immediately apparent, so that's not an issue. i like how you work in the fanfare in various ways into the backing parts. numoon sounds great, if a bit quieter than i'm used to for rap in some sections like at 1:28. similarly, sirenstar's chorus is really quiet and i can't understand a word that she's saying as a result. that's more of an issue than 1:28's volumization. an example is at 2:35 when she starts singing, the trombone in the background is notably louder than her. even her big moment at 3:00, i can hardly hear it. and then, of course, cyril is the cherry on top, i love it. i think overall this is probably over the bar. the volumization issues are a big deal to me, but the arrangement concept is so good and the performances are really solid overall. i'ma mark this as conditional with an ask to just bump up those few sections (1:28, 3:00) up a bit in the vox department. a few db shouldn't throw the rest of the track off and should be quick. CONDITIONAL YES edit 2/28: MW is right in that it's mostly pronunciation, specifically sirenstar's approximants like w. any consonant with more than one articulation point can be hard to relate in sung english. w's hard because the labiar element of the sound is unvoiced (that is, it doesn't have a tone) and so it often gets lost. that said, my issue is fixed so this is good by me. YES

seems like we've seen a lot of AA tracks lately. initial synth sound and natural fade is a neat idea. the kick sounds pretty bad, but the idea is also interesting. this repeats for over a minute - you may want to consider adding in more content in here, rather than have it repeat so often. the melodic material comes in at about 1:09. there's some replaced tones in the melody as you've arranged it, and i'm not sure those replaced tones are necessarily better (1:17 comes to mind). i'd strongly recommend sticking with the original's notes until you understand better how to manipulate chords underneath the melody to fit different ideas. there's not much here besides the lead synth, some drum elements, and a whistle. like kris said, a bassline would help a lot, as would other contextual elements like pads, more specific drum sequences, etc. the workshop forum and the workshop channel on discord would help a lot with this. NO

intro is similar to original but slightly modified. vocals indeed don't sound like they're in the same space as the original, and the chords at 0:52 really don't sound great. the instrumentation across the board in this intro section sounds pretty low-poly, and the vocals (especially when they go up higher) just don't sound good next to them. the vox is also like 2x too loud which doesn't help at all. the bass especially sounds pretty fake. 1:58 is a huge shift in style. vocals are still very loud here, drowning out everything else you might hear, and later the lead guitar does the same thing, just crushingly loud. there's strings and bass and other stuff behind it but i can't really hear it at all. there's a great break at 2:51 that has SC1 terran vibes for a few seconds, and eventually the guitar comes back in at 3:15 and it's more intense. that section sounds great since it's way better balanced. there's some setpiece swells and sfx, and this builds to a high note at 4:01 that fades, alongside some outro chords. i don't think this is above the bar. i think the arrangement concepts are neat but not 100% fleshed out - certainly the second half has a lot more going on and more interpretation than the first half, which felt very much like a sound upgrade with vox layered on top. i think the mixing across the board is very unbalanced, with lead elements waaaaay too loud compared to backing elements. the old trick of listening to tracks at different volumes and seeing what sticks out would be very useful here. NO

i know very little about this OST, but this is a really neat track so clearly i need to explore it more. track technically has no headroom, but even a little compression would have helped. intro is mallet percussion and winds. there's some hard panning going on and some machine-gun attacks are evident. We get some celli at 0:32 that are pretty loud in comparison to the more delicate percussion. this opening 1:30 or so feels like a version of In C with how repetitive each individual part is. at 1:38 we start to get some shifts in what's playing what. the right-ear mallet is finally volumized down at 1:50 - and then for some reason comes back just as loud, not sure what's going on there. the track continues to noodle through a variety of chords in a roughly linear fashion, and eventually we get the textures stripped back to just some glock before it picks up again and keeps doing what it was doing before. there's an extended outro where parts drop out over time and then it's done. this is a fine remix. the original is a neat track with little melodic material, and the remix does a good job of expanding on the textures and adding additional material here and there. i think that the remix misses when it comes to the overall shape and progression of the piece - it's less interesting to listen to than the original, and i'm having issues putting into words why - but it does what it needs to to be over the bar. YES

freya's theme is so good. one of my favorites from a truly great soundtrack. intro features the three against two pattern that makes freya's theme so neat, along with some lush strings. 0:48 brings in more electronic elements with the cursed earth drum pattern and some backing synths that are roughly similar to cursed earth's melodic material, and 1:07 brings back freya's melodic material represented in an augmented form, roughly twice time. the subsequent chippy lead for this theme is great. there's a big build into 1:54, and we get more of the cursed earth backing parts with freya over the top. the augmented version of freya's melodic material is so perfect for this mashup. 2:48 gives us a break from the big drums, and there's more of the musicbox and strings. this goes on for a while - over a minute! - and then we finally get the payoff loud section complete with the guitar ripping over the top of it. it's NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH of course (excellent pacing), and then we're in the outro with more musicbox. i think maybe the last two sections with musicbox were a bit long, but other than that i really enjoyed the variety of textures used and especially the way you interweaved the two themes. this is excellent. can't wait to listen to it again. YES

intro 15 seconds sound great, and the initial groove that you hit at 0:16 sounds great. the initial melodic material at 0:31 sounds pretty weak, though, both not loud enough to draw your ear and far too sustained with nothing to hold your ear after the initial notes. they're also panned right which is weird for a lead. there's a few key changes throughout that are not really what i'd expect to hear at any point. i'm not sure what the idea was - downward key changes are generally discouraged because they reduce energy rather than adding it, and that's what they do here. i agree with kris also that having the same beat on the entire track with no break in the chorded synth isn't really a good choice. the best anthem tracks have breaks, swells, builds, and falling action, and none of that is represented here. it's just the melody in a straight line in a string/winds combo synth that never changes with a beat under it, and then it ends. there's some fun cameo ideas but overall nothing to hold your ear nor make me want to listen again. this needs more arrangement. NO