prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

the initial presentation of Dark Star is great and features some pretty flashy whistle work. the melodica doesn't have a great tone, but it's a melodica, so whatever =) i do think the whistle's real heavy in the right ear, enough that it's tiresome after a little bit and also starts to undermine the power of the drums. the guitars are playing some fairly boring stuff but it's doable. there's not much bass that i can hear in terms of presence, and the drums are pretty repetitive. i like the adaptation of Prophecy, it's easily recognizable and well-played. it is a great break when it comes in. the breakdown at 2:30 is a great break that is well-needed by that point. you did a nice job with the whistle in the lower registers there. the new guitar rhythm/chugs here are also nice since they're a new thing we haven't heard much of at that point. the new pattern at 3:10 also from Prophecy is great and a fun adaptation. great job on the melodica parts there as well. drums had a little bit of a machine-gun effect on their attacks in the fill into the final section. the ending isn't unexpected but the whistle loses just an instant of time there and it sounds a bit weird as a result. overall this is pretty fun to listen to! i think the mastering isn't perfect but it's successful at featuring some very disparate instrumentation in a way that makes sense. i think the whistle's too loud, and ima conditional it based on that. i liked the arrangement although i wouldn't have minded a bit more attention to the drums, especially with fills when you weren't doing blastbeat or something that precludes that. YES (conditional on lowering volume of whistle in right ear)

friend of mine was looking into this and thought it might be hamauzu. i told him to post here after he dug into it more.

i agree that there's a bit of flooding later on in the track when the compressor finally kicks in, and that there's a lot of dynamic contrast (arguably too much width overall, the quieter parts need some expansion). that said, this is a great example of post-rock without actually having any rock in it. it's enjoyable to listen to, accessible, recognizable as the source, and features some really fun effecting and uber-sustained synth work. it probably needs the last five seconds of silence chopped. this is an easy vote from me. i really enjoyed this. YES

jaunty little tune here - i think everyone who had an n64 played this at least a few times. so from an arrangement perspective, this is fine. there's a bunch of fun variation, it's recognizably WR64 still, and while it's a bit repetitive near the end, conceptually it's fun. there's some significant performance issues here that could be easily fixed up, although some might need a re-record to be really there. from a mastering perspective this needs a lot of work. so let's look at this from a resubmission standpoint. /edit: i wrote a bunch about the drums assuming they were live. rexy told me they weren't, so i'll update what i said and removing the advice about recording, since it's irrelevant. right off the bat, the drums feel very flat. the lack of a present kick was an issue to me, along with the very ringy, loud cymbals over the top. kit volumization and EQing is hard to do even if you've got a really standard band to accompany, so in a more sparse aural situation like this you're going to need to do some seriously careful notching of EQs to make sure that you get a snare sound that's still bright and springy without allowing it to be all snap and no body. same with your kick drum - even if you just want beater and no bass tone, you'll want to make sure that your implementation is such that you still get a clear tone that fits in the mix without being as nonexistent as it is here. the toms sound pretty good, the hats when they're used sound fine, and the snare is real dry which isn't my preference but i can see being yours, but the cymbals definitely come through very loud and the kick is essentially not there. /end edit. so next up is the bass. your bass tone is pretty consistent - guessing it's compressed in the initial chain itself? i agree that it's a very treble-light tone, and that lends to making it harder to hear. personally when i play i prefer a brighter tone so that i get more of the finger/string sound, and i find that actually fits better into a soundscape than the bass-only tone you've got going on here since it makes it easier to understand what the bass is playing. i didn't mind the higher parts, either. in terms of what it's playing, i like your rhythms, but i'd definitely stay away from playing pentatonic scales in a song that's very firmly in major. pentatonic scales feature a flat third and flat seventh - both of which do exist in a major song, but both are going to sound weird often. the first lick you play (5 4 b3 1---) is a great example of this. you're playing a minor third (G natural) against the IV chord (A major). that's gonna sound weird no matter what, since A major doesn't have a G natural in it. this comes up numerous times, but in general if you're playing in E like this song is in, don't play G naturals or D naturals unless you're borrowing chords and those are the roots (or like what you're doing at 1:10, which makes sense to have the D since it's a walking line). the whole section from 0:26 to 0:35 shows that you've got the ear to stick it for sure, so it's just a matter of changing how you're listening to the rest of the parts and fitting into them. same with the guitar leads that come in later - they're almost wholly in pentatonic scales, and it sounds very wrong next to all those nice normal major chords. it works when soloing next to power chords in a rock song but not where the individual pitches are so clearly laid out like this track. it's a fun solo and i like the concept, but you can't call a G natural next to an E major chord anything but a wrong note. the part writing for the trumpets was real fun, and i liked the interplay. there's some EQing and especially volumization that could be done to make it so that they're a little more balanced without their dynamics fluctuating so much between solo and ensemble play, but they're well-performed and fun to listen to. for the sax parts, i liked what was being played throughout. several of the little bits and bobs you popped in throughout add a lot of character, so that's really fun. there's several times where your vibrato gets wide enough that pitch was lost, and that's usually a result of not tuning with the embouchure you're going to use when playing, concert E is a hard key for the alto since there's so many notes that don't sit in-tune that are in that key, but a more controlled vibrato would do wonders for making your tone have a more full core. so that's a ton of words. ultimately i think this is a fun ditty. it has a peppy feel that drives it forward, and while the track does feel a bit repetitive by the end since it's mostly the same idea twice, it's still something i'd like to listen to again. i think that there's so many little things that'd really improve the overall feel from a performance standpoint. i also think there's a ton of mastering techniques that can be used to really make this have that professional sparkle to the sound without requiring professional gear or a special room to get it. you've got the arrangement chops to make this work - now just go back and make those revisions that will make this track take another step, and we'll go from there. NO

at least 4.7db headroom, possibly more outside of a spike or two. really needs some boost. i've been on a chippy kick lately, so this was a fun stylistic idea to consider. i also really enjoy devolved music (ie. realistic soundtracks in chiptune) so that's a fun idea. i liked the transition in the beginning to crossfade in your synths. i thought the initial presentation of the melody was fine, although i agree that the drums sound real bad here and throughout. there's just no beef to them at all, and i'd expect a lot more bite to the bass and drums throughout. there's some fun writing there and it's almost impossible to hear. i agree with LT that throughout the track does feel pretty light/empty. there's a lot of ideas you could flesh out or expand upon in the background and supporting parts which would give it more oomph throughout, and i think that's needed before we call this one good enough. i do think the opening and ending are great as-is though. along those lines, the supporting acoustic instruments aren't great and could use some love as well to make them sound more realistic to contrast to the synths better. from a mastering perspective, there isn't really any. this needs a leveling pass to keep some instruments from sticking out (like the sitar at 0:43) or being buried (like the drums everywhere), the drums need a clear EQ pass so you can notch in the snare and kick a little btter, and then it needs compression. i think this one's actually pretty fun overall. i like the perky synths and the ideas you flesh out throughout. i also liked the arrangement and think it's good enough at least in terms of melodic content. fill in the backing parts a bit more during the middle of the track, and fix the production, and this is a great addition to the site. NO

i dug the lofi vibe you had going, and i liked the variations and stutters you added. i'm also a sucker for multi-octave arps, and you used those a bunch too. i do think that the melody got sidelined too much, and that there was a lot more room for melodic interpretation. that'd also help lengthen the track - just over two minutes isn't bad, but it's not great either. i also agree with the other judges that the beats kind of felt the same after a while despite the fun ideas you had in a few places with stuttering or clever patterns. i noticed some wrong notes at 0:49 in the right ear lower synth. that C chord is borrowed, and needs an E natural to really sound right and lead properly into the following F chord. try and get rid of the D and Eb that's playing there. overall i like the feel, but it needs more melody and especially something to help it feel like it progresses from start to finish. dynamics can help, as can variation in your instrumentation or drum programming. right now though i don't think this hits the mark yet. NO

lmao wtf, reuben i don't know what i expected. this is, against all odds, enjoyable to listen to! it's not good yet but it's fun. starting with the eight-hundred pound elephant in the room, yes, your performances on the kazoos are solid! the pitchiness inherent to the instrument is honestly fine most of the time. there's a few times (0:57, 1:01, 1:09 for example) where it gets pretty bad, and needs to be better, but overall it's solid and close enough. one thing i would do however is normalize the differences in volume that occur when you've got one low and one high in opposite ears. you will probably need to do that via automation vs. trying to use a tool to do it for you automatically. the arrangement itself is fairly simple, and i wasn't a fan of the second half being essentially the same as the first part. i'd love to hear some more noodles here, or at least some more creative interpretation of the melodic content. i also noticed that by roughly halfway through, the repetitious background was becoming more and more noticeable. from a mastering perspective, the drums sound flat, the bass sounds very flat and lacking in treble, and the kazoos are honestly too loud overall (if you turn the master volume way down until you can barely hear it, if you don't hear a reasonable mix and just hear the lead, then it's too loud). the drums are blah enough that it's hard to even notice them in the mix. they need a a volume boost, some compression, and probably some more attention paid to EQing them so they notch into such a spare mix better. along those lines, the accordion and bass are hard to hear when the rest of the instruments are playing. some EQing can help there too. this is a clever and fun idea, and the execution is holding it back, along with some overly repetitious backgrounds. i'd love to hear more creative backing material to compliment such a fun idea, and then some real attention paid to mastering it so it's not so all over the place from instrument to instrument in terms of volume. NO

there's a lot to like here. the intro is great, there's a really nice rhythm guitar tone overall throughout, the drums are solid if simple, and the leads are fun and well performed. the melody isn't particularly dressed up much, but the backing parts do a nice job mixing it up while holding water for the melodic content. it's definitely not perfect. the end is not good, the leads are too quiet pretty much throughout but especially before 1:12, and the song essentially ends at 1:26 or so. i like the chugs afterwards, but it needed to recap the melody or noodle some more on melodic content for me to really consider that part of the music. the mastering is also a missing some brightness in the highs. it's short but i still felt a little tired in my ears after listening to it. with that in mind, this is really short for what's essentially a few runs through a short melodic line and then some closeout at the end. i don't think there's enough here to really say "yeah, this is a complete arrangement". if it had a melodic recap at the end i'd consider it to be enough, but as it is there's just not enough actual arrangement for me to consider it as complete and ready for posting. i love the sound, and the first 1.5 minutes are great - a bit more body to the arrangement at the end and i think this is where it needs to be. NO

i didn't have these, thanks cyril! i did get the following from another member of the boards: Public Address 1-7 (three one-hour parts each) Hearts on a Shoreline/Thoughts on a Shoreline Spectrum (2008 New Year's Day mix) five assorted tracks (Drifter, Seeker, Traveler, Voyager, and an untitled one) i'm uploading to gdrive my copies, which are 192kbps CBR. i'll update when that's done. edit: link

still a ton of headroom despite a single outlier spike - at least 4db. sounds more even though than past arrangements. lot of atmosphere in the opening. rebecca continues to impress with her ability to create beautiful soundscapes. this original track is particularly suited to her style with how atmospheric it is. there's some really nice pops of color in here - particularly the section at 1:55 has a lot of beautiful flourishes. the overall feel is much more cinematic than some of your other works, and i like that a lot for this track. pretty easy vote. this is definitely over the bar. YES

mak's always got the best submission mails what an aggressive and mean intro. i love it! particularly the snare, i'm a sucker for a giant trash-can snare sound. i also love the use of phrygian dominant mode - it's such a unique-sounding mode and you really get into it regularly. great job highlighting it with the humanization on the synths carrying it as well. i also liked that such an aggressive track regularly had big breaks to allow it to not get too tiresome over and over again. the big B section at 2:50 was also a great way to emphasize the idea under a half-time beat. rexy's right, the ending's really cheesy, but the track's arrangement is great so it doesn't bother me. from a mastering side this is great. i didn't mind the guitar-forward feel of the track mainly because the synth lead was high enough that it'd cut through whatever you put under it. there's a lot of presence, it's meaty without feeling crunched down, and the breaks don't feel like i cant hear them. excellent work as always. easy vote. YES

this is pretty sausage-y at first glance, and it sounds like it too. the first thing i noticed (after a fun intro) was how crushed everything sounded. there's so much compression on everything and so much mid without highs that it feels very dense and doesn't breathe at all. this needs everything to be turned down and the compressor to be lightened up significantly, and then a solid EQ pass to notch out where everything's supposed to sit. some notable EQing issues include the heavy mid presence in the rhythm guitar sustains and the complete lack of high-end on the drums...i can't even hear if there's cymbals there at all, actually. it does sound like whatever pad you've got layered over the guitars has a lot of verb and a slow attack, and that's causing it to really swell over time and take over the soundscape as well. right now the mastering is significantly hindering the mix. from an arrangement perspective, this track is more of a cover than it is an arrangement for OCR. there's little to no real arrangement here as much as there is re-orchestration of the original into these instruments. emunator hit it on the head when he pointed out that a real breakdown would do wonders for this track to alleviate the heavy driving feel throughout. the melody has a ton of room for some real fun variations and fills as well - it'd be great to hear you really explore that some more. lastly, the drum arrangement is pretty straightforward outside of a few ensemble fills - it'd be great to hear the patterns mixing it up even within each section some more. sometimes an extra snare hit or some mid-section cymbal hits is all that's needed to keep it fresh. this has a fun sound up front and i think it'd be a great track after some fixes. i believe that a significant mastering pass and some more playing with the arrangement will really make for much better submission next time around. NO

hey, this looks great! +1 for the lavalamp and the undermount power controller =) definitely a design i'd like to replicate someday. you did a great job optimizing space.

my original vote called out the arrangement as being solid while the mastering was Astonishing-era Dream Theater guitar and drums in your face and nobody else matters level of not great. so let's take a listen to this. this was a fantastic submission arrangement-wise and was so fun to listen to originally, but everyone who voted encouraged the band to go back and remaster it a bit because while it was good, it was hard to listen to long-term. the band did us one better and even did some re-recording and updating of synth profiles to get a more cohesive and overall significantly better track. this is exactly what we hope for when we ask for a resubmit. i can't get enough of the section at 3:30. the unison leads at 4:12 are so great. the last minute is 1000% better than the original was in terms of listenability. if i nitpicked at anything, it's that the bass guitar still isn't as clear/visible as myself as a bass player would want it, but it does its job undergirding the mix and keeping it rooted, so i'm not going to count my personal preferences as a tick against this. superlative job, megalixer. easy vote. YES

ooh, this hits great right off the bat. excellent production values, a percussive opening with space, an early breakdown/filtro? i love it. you use a lot of space in your synths, and i 100% approve of this - what a great way to get a really meaty sound that hits solid and has contrast. the dub break was fun as well - not too long, showed some fun ideas, didn't lose the beat. and then you copypasta'd the entire next minute =( no melodic variation, no altered chords, no rhythmic changes, no synth changes...there is another fun dub bass solo, but then it ends, at just about 2:30. i would suggest combining your two bass solos (since there can only be one highlander, two just makes things awkward), and then fleshing out that second section some more. a synth solo (not a bass one) with a melodic recap would add some duration while keeping it moving, and some more personalization in the melodic line via rhythms, pitches, new synth timbres, or some updated backing chords would really freshen up the second half so much more. right now this is too repetitive, which is too bad because the production value is dope and you've got some really fun ideas in your backing parts that just get reused too much. give me more variation and this is a DP. NO

there is a distinct compressor engage at 0:59. you may want to lower your knee or adjust the fade a bit so that it's not so obvious when it comes in. this happens again around 1:34, but there i think the issue is the release being too tight so it pumps a bit. this happens again much more distinctly at 2:12 for quite a bit, nearly 20 seconds. beyond that, the realization is beautiful and emotive. your performance is excellent as expected. the arrangement is fairly straightforward, but it's a fun adaptation of the two themes. i like how naturally they feel like they flow together - the entire piece has a Beauty and the Beast forest soundtrack vibe, and features some great conceptualization of what you were going for. if you can fix the compressor so it's not obviously pumping so often, this is an easy yes. i believe this is easy enough to fit into a conditional. CONDITIONAL (fix pumping)

i laughed out loud at the waveform wes posted - i had exactly the same initial thought, which was "i need some onions for this sausage". this track is traumatically overcompressed and really relies a lot on copypasta at least in the melody and most of the drums to keep it moving. that said, it's got a lot going on that's actually all pretty clear, and it has some nice sound design that's fun to listen to. the ending is pretty nonexistent, but the main groove you have is nice to listen to, just to repetitive. the thing that's interesting is you do have 'breaks' worked into your track, but it doesn't feel like it. 2:43 was a perfect chance to tone down the volume slightly and let the mix breathe going into the guitar solo, but it's just as crushingly loud as the rest. give it some room to stretch out! lowering the overall volume in areas like that will reduce the pressure and make it feel like a more cohesive whole. this is a rubber stamp from me agreeing with the other judges - this needs some dynamic breaks, a compressor with a lower ratio and the gain turned down a bit, and some more arrangement to mix up the sameyness of the track. once that's done, though, this'd be an easy vote for me. NO

this is much closer to a cover than an arrangement. i need to echo darke's vote in that this feels like there's nowhere near enough transformative arrangement done here. i'm going to echo my vote for your hollow knight track, where i said that it has to say something. i definitely don't feel like this one is doing more than saying what the original did, with lower-quality sound design. there's some strange note choices as well - the scalar into chromatic gliss at 1:39 is an awkward choice to my ear, there's what i can only call a mistake at 1:56 in the backing mallets, and there's what i think is an incorrectly-triggered attack at 2:13 right before you change tempo again which causes the bass/cello pizz to sound very out of time in context. i probably sound like i think this is terrible, and i don't! there's some really fun sound design - especially all the reedy, windy instruments you use, which are a personal favorite of mine. mirroring them with xylophone is a great way to add some oomph to them and you use that technique several times. i also like that you're pretty adventurous with some of the NCTs you're using - 5:09 sounds a lot better than the notes on a page say it should, although it could be prepared much better than you did. there's definitely some fun ideas here, but there needs to be significantly more Rebecca and less Masayoshi Soken for this to pass. NO

rubber-stamping this one. emunator highlighted the problems with the lead guitar in a few places, and i also agree that the mixdown is messy and the clipping needs fixing. sounds like it was done on some closed-ear headphones that are more for listening vs. mixing - there's tons of beef in the middle and much less low end, and the highs are just cymbals. the drums actually sound pretty good considering it was a single mic that handled it all. i think my main complaint is that the guitar volumes seem to be all over the place, and EQ is very mid heavy. it gets quite tiring to listen to pretty fast. cleaner mix and this is a pass for me. NO

this track was a pleasure to listen to. you've nailed the aesthetic so well with this - synth work, percussion, the grit on everything, the mastering, it's all fantastic. there's room for the track to breathe in the arrangement, there's a clear and over-arching journey we're travelling, and there's a ton of creativity in getting from point a to point b. this would be an instant classic. i spent quite a bit of time thinking about the arrangement aspect of this one. having been told where the verse/chorus concepts come from, i can definitely hear the influence the original track has on the arrangement. i kept coming back to this in the standards, emphasis mine: so i believe the source material is dominant but not identifiable in this track. the verse section is a great example of using augmentation (a musical term used to indicate the increase of note values, and by extension as its use as the opposite of diminution, the removal of flourishes) to fit into the style. i found the verse correlation to be present but not immediately identifiable since it's so augmented. the chorus section as well uses parts of the correlating section from the original, but only part, and because it's essentially just four or five notes of that section, it isn't even as correlative as the verse section was (which was already pretty loose). counting the verse into rexy's calculations above gets it over 50%, but only just, and only with a very charitable interpretation of the timings. i think ultimately, although i initially didn't want to NO this, i'm going to have to. it's just not close enough. it'd be fine for a project mix but it isn't enough for a mixpost. adding even a little more correlation between your verse/chorus sections and the original's verse/chorus sections without losing the originality and great arrangement you're displaying will be enough for me. NO

haha, i love the initial 20 seconds or so. it's got that classic intro-build into the lead guitar. i also really appreciate the use of timbral variations/arrangement in your synths to keep it interesting without relying on just repeating the melodic theme over and over. there's some really fun little things here and there that pop out of the mix (example: the little bass synth fill at 1:58) and make for a much better package than it appears at first. the vocaloid is gonna turn a lot of people off, i think, due to personal preference. it's simultaneously not clear what's being sung while being bright enough in upper registers to bother me, especially when compared to how dense and dark the rest of the mix is. lifting that around the 2k-3k range with a notch filter will help the pronounciation a *lot*, as will rolling off the siblants in the 8-10k range of 'her' voice. i do think the fadeout's going to bother some people too. personally i don't mind fadeouts. however, it's nearly 25 seconds long and doesn't appear to follow a traditional parabolic curve so it spends a lot more time in the middle of the fade than most people like. if it was, like, ten seconds at most i wouldn't say anything, but this is too long. i think both of these fixes are simple enough to handle under a conditional. a bit of EQing on the voice and updating your fade (start it later, use a parabolic curve, then nail down the silence at the end and trim it) will make for a much more complete package. CONDITIONAL (on fixing EQ and fade)

this is a beautiful arrangement that has some really nice emotion throughout. there's some nice surprises with the arrangement and scoring, and there's some real nice variety in the dynamics. probably my only complaint is that the first 'big' section, from 1:15 through 1:52, the left hand is very dominant in the mix, and it overwhelms the melodic line under these big block chords. aside from that, though, there's some real nuance in the playing overall. pretty easy vote for me. YES

i mean, what was i expecting? of course it's good. there are some sour notes that you may want to consider cleaning up. the first is the fourth in the bass (a D) bumping against the major third in the chord (C#) in a passing tone at 0:47.5 (this happens often and never quite sounds right, possibly due to the pitch bending prevalent in this bass instrument you're using). this is followed by a pile of conflicting notes: a G# and A (7th and octave) next to each other at 0:50 in the bells/ep, and some very strange passing notes surrounding weak inversions of what sounds like a ii7 chord at 0:53 (i think you go to an A under that Bm chord...3rd inversion is best avoided if possible!) while the bass is scooping quite a bit so it's hard to hear where it lands. it was very strange because most of the rest of the the track felt so clean from a chord standpoint. one other odd part in the bass is at 1:12 and 1:36, where it sounds like that's supposed to be a string fall? it's hard to hear the body of the pitch dropping, it just kinda stops (on an upright bass, you'd make that attack much louder to allow the fall to speak a bit to show what you're doing before it faded). i don't know how i'd avoid that without using a better sample, but i didn't think it sounded intentional. note nitpicking aside, there's a lot of nuance in what's going on here for the entire first section. i liked the consistent movement of different parts, and there's a lot of ensemble rhythms which i always am a sucker for. i love the shelving of the parts, too - the entire track is very clear and pleasing to listen to, and it's easy to pick out all the little things each instrument's doing to add some touch to the piece. the transition at 1:46 was great. still very recognizable as the same track but unique and new, and the catch beat you add at 1:55 is fun and set up well without being confusing. the ending wraps the melodic content up nicely in a way that brings it back to the beginning without feeling rehashed. i wouldn't have minded a final chord to help resolve the supporting parts that were moving, but this is still real nice. overall this is a great track. there's some weird notes in the first part but easily overshadowed by a clean track that has a great vibe and fun arrangement. nice work! YES new version edit, 8/11: MORE YES

interesting concept here. i agree that the kit sounds pretty blah, and the keys aren't on the same swing as the cymbals. once the ep comes in, it's a nice take, but it feels pretty rigid. at 0:57, it picks up, and your nice guitar tone starts to come out. unfortunately it's still pretty rigid - i'd love to have more creativity there for your playing, so that you're not just limiting what you're playing to how you can sequence the keys. around here i noticed that the bass is playing some really weird patterns for this style, as well. you're spending a lot of time on repeated notes (even if it's a root, that's a no-no), and also i am expecting to hear a lot more stepwise motion instead of jumps mostly to and from the root note of the chord. i'd encourage you to get more creative with the patterns and notes you're going for in the bassline as often that's one of the most interesting parts of the background. a great example of this that i always say to check out is the bassline in the Cantina Band track in star wars episode 4. it's very stepwise, and during the turnaround gets more creative with some jumps, but it hardly ever sits on a root tone and it's always progressing forward. it's a great spot to learn from. after this, the piano comes in with some arpeggiated content for a bit at 1:12. this is real out of time, or at least more noticeable than last time - the keys have a bit of swing applied but it's nowhere what the ride has or the guitar is playing, so it sounds totally out of time. i agree that the following section is either copy/pasted or close enough that it doesn't matter. adding the saw lead at about 2:20 was a nice change-up, although i'd rather had seen more new content there. after that we're into an outro that's essentially the same as the intro with a bit of whistle bell on top, and a fun extended chord to end it. as a whole - there's some interesting ideas in the arrangement, but they're reused too much, and you're significantly held back by instrument choice/usage. i think there's several things that you could work on to get a much better track overall. adding some more content so that it's not so much copy/paste will help. another, more careful look at what the keys are playing as compared to what the cymbal is rhythmically laying down will help a lot. and another pass on the backing parts as a whole - the bass, the drum patterns, everything - will overall make a much more interesting and solid track. NO

hey, there's some great chops shown off in this! there's some real fun/interesting styles showcased too, starting right away with the switch between that aggressive intro and the jazzy interlude at 0:30. snare there is real slammed and could use a bit more nuance. i agree with rexy and emunator that the mastering is decent but a touch over-loud throughout. i get the stylistic consideration, but it's just too much over the top. i liked what you did with the arrangement. there's a ton of goofiness going on and yet you still got some real meat in the heavier sections.i like the contrast between the synth/chippy sections and the guitar as well. there's just nowhere near enough content to really call this enough, though. taking out the ending (repeated) fade, the opening several seconds of silence, and the sections which sound like they're the exact midi from the game, you're at around 1:30-1:40 of content depending on how you count it. just not enough overall. expanding on a few of these sections would significantly lengthen the track without adding too much repetition, and you'd have a much better track overall for it. right now this is just too short. another arrangement pass and maybe some attention to your output level and this is in a much better place. NO