prophetik music

opens with a fun soundtest-style chord resolution, and then quickly gets into the groove. initial melodic presentation is really dense - everything's very close in both sound style and register, and i wasn't a huge fan of how dense it was. i get wanting to save the fun stuff for later, but this is nearly a quarter of the piece and it is pretty tight together. there's some new flutters and bass elements added at 0:47, which is very helpful, and then we get the entire big hit at 1:01 which is awesome as expected. 1:12 is where we get the full band sound for the first time, and it's a lot more fleshed out. i also thought that the lead at 1:25 was both too loud and kind of boring what it was doing - i wanted to hear the backing elements a lot more. this trucks through some repeated material with a few intensifiers, and then it's done. i think overall there's a lot of missed opportunity in this one. with a reduction of quality and breadth of instrumentation, we in general require more on the arrangement side to balance that (for example, see small ensemble or piano solo works that we post). there are a lot of elements of this arrangement that are on autopilot to my ears - the drums essentially don't change for a minute plus in the middle after not changing for 40s earlier, there's the same flutter backing synths used to provide chordal elements, the melody's played with the same flips and changed elements every time that it comes back...there's a lot more copied material in here than you'd expect for a track that relies on arrangement to carry it over instrumentation or synth design. i think there's too much repetition. there's several novel ideas in here - like i loved the little HEY shout, i like the initial presentation of the melody and the section at 1:01, etc. - but there's so many track elements just doing the same thing for 16 or 32 bars in a row that they did before. hearing the drums do the same thing for a minute when there's so many ways to mix them up and personalize them (especially with a melody line that has a lot of offbeat stuff!) is such a letdown. NO

some 2spoopy4u flutters on the opening, alongside some cello and filtered percussion. there's a bassy drop and the primary chord progression comes in alongside a half-time beat. i actually liked the bass here, it feels similar to the original's bass elements. melodic material comes in at 1:01. i love the idea of having it playing ahead of the beat and letting the echo/antecedent be where it's supposed to be, really adds to the disconcerting nature alongside the wooble synth you're using for a lead. there's a drop at 1:43 and we get a dose of a freaky ghost beat right after. the melodic material here gets lost a bit initially behind all the ear candy, but honestly the ear candy's cool enough i don't mind. the claps are pretty loud too. 2:42's a beat drop and transition section into another funky beat at 3:05. i like the attention on the lead here a lot, the subtle swells are really nice, and the continuing changes to the beat and lead elements help keep me locked in despite the melody being so simple. 3:49 kind of feels like the start of an outro, and after some pageantry between the lead and bass, we get one last big chord and some flutters on the way out the door. this has a really lush, interesting feel throughout. there's always something more to find when you dig in. as usual, superb job. YES

yeah, i hear the high focus right away. there's no beef - the kick, bass synth, etc. all have very little low presence. it sounds like you've EQed the booty off of everything that's supposed to be low and then boosted the highs further. this would have been fine on the site in 2002, but expectations have risen a lot since then. this is honestly pretty close. the arrangement is solid and i like what the instruments are doing. the bass peak is nearly 70hz, though - there's just no bottom end. there's a huge peak at 145hz too which is roughly that bass instrument you're using - which tells me that a lot of the potential is being used up getting a very vanilla bass synth to cut through a lot of stuff. a bass synth with more edge to the attack may cut better, allowing you to drop off the overall volume. taking that entire bassline down an octave would help a lot too. combined with getting more sub presence from your kick, that'd fix the bass issue, and i think this'd be good. for your kick, i think the clicky attack works great, you just need more bottom end - ensure you're not trimming out via EQ the low end of the kick, like 30-40hz. that'll give it more presence. you could also layer in another kick that's all sub-bass tone and EQ out the really low stuff there. chimp's right about the RMS as well. turning everything down a bit so it's not so blown (or even just reducing the gain on whatever limiter you're using) would help consolidate the volume a bit. NO

Final Fantasy Legend was one of the first games I ever played. The simple soundtrack to this GB classic was the target of one of my first VG arrangements I ever did, as well - I 'transcribed' the three melodic channels to saxophone parts and got some friends from my school's band to play it =) I haven't listened to this track in over a decade, but I only needed to check one or two notes against the original vs. my memory, surprisingly. My focus here was to take the original theme (which I always felt was very mournful) and do what i could to keep it in natural minor (as opposed to harmonic minor, with a major V chord) while enjoying the beautiful melodic elements alongside this slightly-altered chord pattern. i got a little bored and switched to a shuffle to give it some more verve halfway through. I used Omnisphere almost exclusively for this, with some elements coming from Elastik. Thanks to Hemo and ParadiddlesJosh for letting me bounce this off of them and for the actionable feedback where provided. Games & Sources Prologue theme from Final Fantasy Legend for the Game Boy. YT is here:

i object! there is no proof! opens with a wall of acquatic ambiance pads, but quickly hits the secret of the forest melody with AA behind it. lead is appropriately rudess-y with the scoops and subtle vibrato. it's notably louder than everything else after it though. the AA melody's in by 1:00 with a descending pattern to it under the SotF chords. i love how you're passing the melodic material around between such old-style instruments. 1:34 is a new vibe, much more low-end body. the drive here alongside the SotF arp is so immediately inspiring. the adaptation of AA's melody here as well is so good - this is an excellent job making it fit without making it feel like it's a clear mashup. the solo that follows it is fun, but it does feel slightly ahead of the beat throughout. i'm wondering if delaying it by a few ms would make it settle back into the groove a bit better. 3:01's chord progression through the bVI-bVIII-i-V is so fitting given that it's half of the chrono cross soundtrack. and then we get double time with the melodies alongside each other! what a climax this is. this isn't chill at all but i don't care. the extended climax at 3:52 was excellent, i loved that you tripled down on it and then didn't even immediately resolve it, but waited a second. what a payoff. we get a last wash of color and arps and it's done. i struggle with remixes of AA specifically because Beneath the Surface was my first exposure to the theme and that's a Mt Rushmore OCR for me, so everything else always seems to be lacking in comparison. this is easily one of the only remixes i've ever heard of this way-overdone theme that truly brings tons of originality and creativity in the arrangement alongside superb execution to a similar level. and you managed to do it via alchemy with another rockstar track from another rockstar game, instead of just relying on AA's incredible foundation by itself. superlative job. WOW

starts with some wide pads and a pretty similar initial representation of the original. there's a fairly immediate transition to some phased drums, guitar, and bass at 0:56. drums are doing some neat things with time and drop out in interesting places, which is fun. there's a lot of ear candy added - the kalimba at 1:40, the synth stuff at 1:32, guitar work at 1:52 - so despite the lack of traditional arrangement, the upscaling is pretty solid. there's some push and pull to the time at 2:15, and the drums and bass kick the groove up soon after. i appreciate the wildness this brings to the table, as the parts kind of fall apart and come back together again at 2:50 or so. i can definitely hear the warmth you've attempted to infuse into this track - it's present both in the instrumentation and in the mastering. those rising synths at 3:14 are delicious. there's some strings to carry the first melodic fragment at 3:25, and those carry the rest of the track along some light accoutrement. this is delightful. uplifting, warm, a summer breeze type of track that has some really fun nooks and crannies to explore. excellent work. YES

original is just a beat with an arp and some pad chords. it's a neat idea, but man is it limited in what it has. opens with some distorted synth flourishes and pads. percussive elements and bass comes in at 0:18. i hear the first reference to the original at 0:37 in a quiet mid-range synth in the background, but it comes in more at 0:56. mix is hard-slammed up against the limiter here, but the distortion that's coming from that appears to be intentional, giving it a gritty feel that matches the game well. the sonar ping tones in the original are mirrored with some extras at 1:31. the mixing here is dense in a few ways - besides being quite loud, it's a very dark feel with little in the highs and many layered elements in the lows. the bass sits around the 30-35hz mark and there's a lot both there, at the first overtone (70-80hz), and the second overtone (~95-100hz). it's hard to tell if that's from the bass being overtone-heavy or if that's where the drum hits fit, but it's pretty thick as a result. as it is, the fundamental from the bass is hard to hear on the bass-heavy headphones i'm listening on, so i'm wondering if backing off some of the other low-end elements a bit would allow that to breathe more and not feel so crunched down low. there's a cadence at 2:08 and it keeps trucking on the groove. i like the drum work and the space in the bass instrument, but it's an intense groove and it's been going for >1:30 at this point and hasn't really changed at all - some air is needed. there's a shift at 2:44 when a new instrument is added, but it's the same groove here even when a higher rhythmic element is added at like 3:05. we do finally get a bit of a break at 3:24, but the rhythmic bass elements are still there and are back in at 3:40. given the lack of delta for minutes at a time, this definitely needs some repetitive elements cut out - even the chord progression, which is super basic, hasn't changed at all for almost four minutes at this point. 3:58 adds a higher synth which is a nice change since everything up until now's been very low and heavy. after this is some subtractive arrangement as elements drop out. we hear the sonar synth once more time before the fade starts at 5:10 and continues for >30 seconds. way too long of a fade-out. i really like this idea. the initial groove with drums and the squelchy bass synth sounds really great. it pretty much doesn't change for 4+ minutes, though, outside of a 20s break and eventually adding a higher synth to mirror some other elements. that's waaaay too long for a melody-light approach like you've done here. if there were things to draw our attention away from the basic chord progression and almost non-existent harmonic elements from the original, i'd be fine with the length, but this is too much repetition. even the final fadeout is 20s or more longer than it should have been. from a mastering perspective, it's very loud, but the distortion introduced by slamming everything into the limiter is desired, so that's not a huge deal. i'd not mind seeing a few of the backing elements turned down a touch to let the melodic material breathe when it shows up, though. i would love to hear a version of this that's maybe three minutes or so long and includes more expansion of the original. it'd be great if there was some more flex in the dynamics in the piece, as well. NO

this has a lot of the themes from Earth, which is the only track from the OST i've ever remixed myself. was neat to hear the different elements from a track i haven't heard in a decade. opens with the quarter note theme from the original alongside some pads and swooshes. there's some keys, but it really hits at 0:30 with strings coming in. they're a bit muddy in the low end and repeat the same pattern for quite a bit. there's some electric guitar for a bit on the arpeggiated lead, but i also hear some clipping at 1:01, and a lot more at 1:06 and after. the additive arrangement techniques continue with a synth voice element and some cinematic strings. there's a lot overlapping by this point - maybe 1:35 or so - and it's mostly doing the same thing as the original through all this. there's a drop at 1:59 and some rhythmic elements added in, which is a nice change. a plectral instrument is added at 2:13 and again outlines the melodic material with some other light arpeggiation added in. we continue to see additive arrangement as more elements are added in, making what's effectively an additive crescendo through the next 30s or so. there's a lot of clipping around the 3:04 mark for several seconds when the bass instrument comes in. there's a big wall-of-sound transition at 3:27 with some taiko and other rhythmic elements added in. this sounds awesome but clips like nuts - the bass and the bottom end of the drums are heavily conflicting with each other until 3:56 when they drop off. there's some outro material and it's done. this needs a significant mastering pass. there's a lot of EQing and volumization that can be done especially on the low end to help with the huge clipping that's going on. i don't even really hear compression or a limiter engaging, so something that can reign in the big sections without losing the timbral contrast of the quieter parts would be critical. from an arrangement perspective, this is a fairly conservative but competent arrangement. i wouldn't have minded hearing some more creativity around the melodic line and chord progressions, given that most of the countermelodic and harmonic material you used was already present in the original. before this passes, for me, i'd need to hear a significant EQing and volumization pass made so that the mastering is much cleaner. the arrangement stuff isn't required but it'd be a stronger track if it's considered. NO

post-rock? sign me up! some really pretty flourishes to start. the bass does something really weird at 0:26 and again at 0:30 (detuned? is it scooping?). the drums start at 0:39 and it's a nice feel already. the addition of the rhythmic element at 1:04 in the acoustic is a neat feel behind the drums. we get the b content at 1:57, complete with shift in time signature. i like the lead being carried by the guitar octaves there. we finally get some real drums at 2:35 and it blows through the chords again before a big hit at 3:28, with some falling action. after a bit of a bridge, 3:52 begins the real build, and this has a suitable payoff of almost a minute of full bore material. finally hitting the electric guitar lead feels really great here. i wouldn't have minded if the guitars were more wall-of-sound here, but the band sound here is still great. 5:12 is the beginning of the end. zach's lead guitar parts here are reminiscent of some of OA's stuff over the years, so that's a fun correlation. some washes of sound and the track's done. this is a lay-up as expected based on the contributors. excellent work. YES

opening is very similar to standoff, but quickly shifts to an acoustic-driven psytrance groove. this progresses through the chord progression before getting to the first break at 0:54. audiomint comes in here - it's not super clear what she's singing at first, as the pronunciation isn't super clear. open your mouth when you sing! that'll fix most of that right away without changing anything else. a bit more emphasis on the consonants will help too. there's some rising action with the strings around 1:10 and at 1:24 it really kicks it up. vocals are still clear in the mix, although i wouldn't have minded a little more formant boost around 2.5k-3k to bring her voice out more as opposed to just cranking it up. some sfx and the beat hits at 1:58. there's a really nice lfo distorted synth doing some fun stuff in the background here. this headbobs through the chord progression some more until we get to a string-driven section at 3:53. this is pretty dense in here with the low strings and some of the synth pads in the same area. there's a drop at 3:22 and a shift back to 12/8. kick has a ton of click on it which is a neat feel. some acoustic makes it back in which is nice - i was starting to lose the plot through some of the chord work without melodic backing. the mesh of acoustic and electronic at 4:02 is really nice. the gating effects applied once a while are fun too. it goes through the chord progression one more time and it's done. this is a pretty hip track as expected from a xaleph-fronted project. the beat is immaculate throughout. i would have liked to hear a bit of a clearer singing section, and separately i didn't connect a lot of the more beat-driven sections directly to Standoff's recognizable elements. i believe we're still >50%, but would have liked more overall correlation. this is still way over the bar though, excellent work as always. YES

my original vote criticized the instrumentation but loved the arrangement and concept. this has 4.6db of headroom. opens with piano (straight from the Siege track, to my ears) with some nice light strings over top. cello carries the melody after that and sounds great, really rich tone. it might be a touch loud, and the vibrato's a little aggressive in parts. 0:59's strings sound better than last time for sure. 1:32's change is still abrupt but not quite as weird as it was before, i think. cello and subsequent vocals sound a lot better. there's a highly artificial artifact in the waveform through this section that i don't know is intentional - it looks like you managed a volume shift by the gain knob on your limiter, which is kind of wild. it coincides with the entry of the choirs. this section with the two choirs sounds good, but i think the men's choir is a bit loud as it's hard to hear things beyond it when it's going full-on. 2:57's idea is super fun. from an execution standpoint, there's nothing in the middle of the chord stack besides some flute runs. there needs to be something supporting the higher strings so that the bass doesn't feel disconnected. when the brass drums come in, it fleshes out a lot. the drums really run over a lot in the mix though, so some more EQing may be needed there. the ending is a call-back to the Siege track, and feels pretty similar to the opening. from an execution standpoint, this is a lot better than last time. the strings overall are gobs better, the instrumentation has a lot more individuality to it, and the choirs sound great. i think right now though that the overall instrumentation and use of samples is right on the edge of where i'd consider it to need to be to be posted. there's some missteps in the mastering (like the density of the end section around 3:25) that i think keep it on the NO side for me, but i'm honestly going to wait on a few more votes before i make my decision. i think this is pretty borderline but the arrangement is really fun. ? edit 10/8: i am going to NO this. i believe the execution ultimately falls down in too many places. some major elements that come to mind is the rigid piano scoring, hard vibrato on the cello, 2:20ish's seemingly disparate elements, 2:57's emptiness under the string tune (just the cello and flute runs, but nothing supporting the melodic line strongly enough to count), and the compressor engaging at 3:21ish thanks to the drums having no room tone to them and the emptiness in the scoring at that same section. again, i love the idea - it's just not there on the execution side. NO

opens with some tambourine and strings. there's some little wind perks here and there as well to provide some texture. there's an ascending line at 0:27 that sounds like it is being layered and sounds discordant as a result, lots of major seconds next to each other. this progresses for about 40s in a continuing, overlapping, rising motion, alongside some orchestral percussion. there's a shift at 1:10 and the samples being used (which up to now have been not great but OK) are really exposed. the super-long attack on the strings and significant swell sounds pretty rough and unrealistic. there's also not a lot up to this point that i am associating with the original. there's another break at 1:45 and some pipes are added in. the original's material is behind the pipes solo, and it's a neat vibe. i like the tone of the guitar used. when the flute came in around 2:50, i'm finding myself wondering if that's the original audio with other stuff layered on top (we don't accept original audio here essentially at all). right after that there's some really atonal stuff that wasn't clear if it was intentional. 3:41's a rising action and clearly the start of something else from a feel perspective. this is mostly original to my ear but demonstrates better usage (for the most part) of the samples than earlier at 1:10. 4:15's return of the melody alongside some more cinematic strings is nice, although it's quite muddy as the low strings are just crushing the sonic space - the spectrum analysis of here has some really unique peaks as compared to a normal track. this kind of noodles through a lot of mud as the mid range gets overwhelmed by a choir sample, and then it's done. there is virtually no ending to speak of - not even ending on a chord, really, it just sounds unfinished. i think the mood you attained for the first several minutes is definitely in keeping with the original. you mentioned that as a goal and it's definitely accomplished. overall the usage of the strings - specifically in several of the sustains where they swell out of control, and in the low strings where it just dominates the texture - needs a lot of work. i thought the pipes stuff was really interesting actually and well-done. you'd want to confirm if you're using the original audio, as we don't accept original audio in most cases. the arrangement was quite meandering and didn't have a clear focus on a melodic line throughout. this is a technique that can definitely work in the right setting, but i found most of the meandering to be forgettable and not taking me along on a journey. there was no goal for most of the track. it'd be difficult to identify 50% of the track as having VtM:R source to my ears due to this. separately, there's no ending, and there was a lot of atonality that didn't seem to be prepared or set up in a way that i'd expect something like that to be - it didn't seem intentional, which is bad when it comes to tonal writing. overall i think this needs more attention on the strings usage throughout, some focus on the atonal elements where you've got long tails from notes overlapping other sustains, and some time spent paring down the arrangement to be less noodly and more focused. NO

i would never have thought of this in 3/4 tbh, given the strong emphasis towards the first beat in the measure (as opposed to 1 and 3, often used in 3/4 to keep it moving forward) and the flowing feel of the piece. i feel this in 6/8 more. opens with strings and keys in a cinematic crescendo. adaptation to 7/8 is done using a standard 2/2/3 pattern. nice flourish into the first presentation of the melody at 0:10. there's a big crescendo and shout at 0:22 that doesn't sound particularly realistic - i think it's the brass - but the following section is really nicely done with the sudden reduction in volume. vin runs at 0:32 pop in and out of the texture nicely as well. instrumental stacks at 0:43 do a good job coming out of the texture as well above the choral elements. there's a significant decrescendo and reduction of energy through 0:54 into 0:58. choral elements are starting to feel a bit overused here. 1:27's a reset, sort of, and there's another crescendo to a dropoff - really liking that effect. 1:47's where the trumpet leads the charge into another significant crescendo through 2:06's break. from there, it's a little bit of piano noodling and it's done. the piano here's saying some nice stuff but it's a little robotic. and then it's done. the bosendorfer's a great choice for this kind of music, given that it's so warm and rich without giving up the ability to cut through big orchestral stacks. this is a fun romp through one of the better Dark Souls themes. i particularly liked the swells into drops - you did a good job subverting what could have been otherwise a very bog-standard cinematic orchestral adaptation. excellent work. YES

opens with sfx and rhythmic elements. opening section is very quiet, maybe too quiet based on the breadth of dynamics in the piece. there's some string sweeps and bells far off, and these continue to accompany foley work until we get to the 1:00 mark when we start to get more instruments. i'm not hearing a ton of source in this opening section, but there's some very tenuous links to the bells and some melodic content. there are definitely nontonal elements around 1:26 which is an issue due to the very long reverb. 1:39 is kind of where things get going. this is very meandering. i can hear the B section of the melody in here, underneath some of the wandering ideas. there's some really odd note choices though (plucked/filtered bell instrument...is that a piano? at 1:50, 2:03, 2:08), and the verb tail is still really long which makes it even more dense. the low mids through here are very dense as well - the fundamental of the aforementioned bell/piano instrument is right next to the bass, and it's pretty muddy here as a result even before the low sweep synth comes. 2:16's a big shift. there's a significant reduction of backing elements in here so it's immediately less dense, but you've still got low strings, the piano instrument, and a bass instrument next to each other in the same range, and a distorted synth comes in later in the same range, so it's still dense. the melody's clearer here, which is good, and there's some fun ideas in the percussion and in the pizz strings that aren't in the basement. the piano gets more noodly as this section goes on, and the lack of clarity on the attack as a result makes it difficult to hear what's going on. 2:53's a shift to orchestral instrumentation. there's a lot of sustains here in the brass especially - it feels very over-orchestrated as a result. this is a super common mistake among people using orchestrated elements in edm and rock, and it's amazing how much body a piece gets by removing elements. cutting out a lot of the instruments sustaining notes would make it feel less mid-heavy and let the melody and percussion soar over the top. the big, blocky melody works really well with orchestral instrumentation, though, and this is a great transitional section to pin together the section before and after it. this would be a great opportunity to get after modifying the melody a bit if you wanted to. there's a tambourine that's used earlier but more heavily at 3:35, and it's very resonant and ringy - it'd be great if we could tone that back. the drop at 3:50 is a neat idea to change the feel a bit and mix it up. i think it could have been prepared a bit better so that it's not just a knee-jerk change. there's a note issue at 4:05.5 in whatever bell instrument comes in there, and it happens again a few seconds later. the additive crescendo from the pads and other instruments coming in sounds neat, but they are in general all lower instruments and it means that again it gets very dense very quickly. there's a bell instrument used at 4:27 in a percussive manner that is very piercing and was hard to hear. there's an ascending pattern to build tension - and then the instrument fades into a more meandering thing alongside more foley. there's some musicbox elements, and it's done. i know this track has been a journey! it certainly has changed a ton for the better since the last time i heard it. in general, it's still too low-mid dense (this is an instrumentation issue, not a mastering issue), and there's a lot of leaning on instruments with long tails (either by reverb or by design) that result in clashing tonalities. i think both can be mitigated by taking a surgical approach to each instrument and carefully either adjusting the range it's playing in (for pads, plectral instruments, and pianos) or trimming the long sustains and resonant freqs (on bell instruments). i personally didn't care for or get the first minute plus or the last 30s, but that's neither here nor there. i do think that having a clearer ending statement that's more rooted in the original and less interpretive might be a more effective way to close out the arrangement, but that might be personal preference from me. keep at it! you can do this =) NO

you stole my thunder with the play-by-play, so now i'm stuck writing actual notes. bah! opening piano is beautiful. it's a bit hammer-heavy of a tone but it's surprisingly organic as a result. opening cello work is, as you described it, pretty raw and emotive - there's a lot of bow sound/fuzz in the tone, but it feels very adjacent as a result. there's a few scoops which fit the style very well. the next section starting at 1:16 is a little slow to get going, but the sustains in the cello sound really nice when they come. there's a big shift at 2:22 for the 'big crash' section. i don't feel this is quite as well-handled and integrated as the equivalent part in the original. there's a lot of left hand in the piano so it sounds a bit dense, but that's more a recording issue than it is an arrangement element. the next section with the repeated ascending motif and slow decrescendo is really nice, though, and when it goes to the harmonized riff, the delicate backing in the keys is really pretty. there's some noodling through some chord progressions after that section, and a fade that i think probably could have been the end of the track comfortably. a few more times through the initial guitar arp in the keys and it's done. this is a pretty straightforward adaptation of the original. there's a lot of neat little things done to keep it from being a straight cover, and i appreciate those little bits and bobs here and there. i think that the transition in the middle to the bigger section could have been handled in a less angular fashion, and the end drags a bit, but overall this is a great arrangement with a lot to like. the realization of it is also superb - it feels very close to my ears and the recording is done in a very transparent manner. nice work. YES

opens with airy pads and some nice vocal elements. there's the slightest bit of overlap to indicate that they're layered else i wouldn't have been able to tell initially that it's done with a synth. technology has apparently progressed amazingly, because this sounds fantastic. the beat and backing elements at 0:31 are great, tons of space in the bass and the drums are nice and tight. the main riff at 1:04 is a little heavy in the left ear, but i like how it's being played and i like the escalation at 1:22 in the backing elements. there's a recap in the vocal elements starting at 1:42 - essentially a verse 2 - with some extra ear candy behind it to keep interest. the chorus/synth led section right after it has a lot of fun new content as well, including the vocal elements. there's a break at 2:54 and the really dumb lyrics are a bit more highlighted here, but it's effective as a break in the beat and vibe for a bit before the verse content comes back again. i'd have liked the guitar parts to be a bit louder here, as it's the only new thing that's going on in this section. i liked the subsequent guitar/synth stuff at 4:00 or so a lot. it trucks through some more chorus content, hits the flying high phrase once more, and it's done. this is great! it's got superb mastering throughout, it drives forward throughout and doesn't get stale despite some repetition in content, and the vocal elements really work well. definitely an obvious demonstration of your progress as a musician. excellent work. YES

great original! really slow, glammy synthwave vibe right off the bat. i think the snare's both a little short and a little high for the style. the track kind of noodles through the melodic material in a pretty straightforward fashion until like 1:35 when we get some altered chords. a few of these aren't handled quite as well as i'd hope and are a bit crunchy. we do finally get the B theme of the melody at 1:54, with some vocal pads layering it. there's some more slightly weird harmonies at 2:20 (parallel fifths are in general a little weird to western ears) and then it settles back down to the opening synth lick again. around 3:00 we get a synth solo which is a welcome departure from the sameyness of the first few minutes. there's also a slight change to the drums and backing elements in this section, which is also a first in the track to my ears. 4:15's the fourth or fifth copy/paste of the opening synth line, with a little added vocal wash the second time through. there's a sustain on the bVII chord and it's done. i think my biggest problem with this track is that it goes nowhere and it takes over five minutes to do it. there is so much sameyness throughout. this is easily a three-minute track scraped over five minutes of bread, and beyond that it doesn't really ever change backing elements or beat or instrumentation or feel during that entire time either. the shape of this track is lacking, and it's very boring as a result. you've got some fun ideas here - i think the initial style is really a great idea, and i think the synth solo was really fun! - but it's just so much drab around it. mixing up instrumentation can really help with this, as can adding some sparks of color here and there with added elements that aren't playing the whole time, or with drum fills. i mean, the drums essentially play the same thing >95% of the track - i get it's a ballad, but something's gotta add some life occasionally. i really like the idea, and i think that your electro-ballad approach is a functional one. i think it needs more verve and a better sense of dynamics and movement to get out of the doldrums. NO

that castlevania source is cursed. opens with some fun washes of sound and vocals, and then we're in the meat right away. some really impressive sound design in that first 30s. there's a huge hit right at 1:10 that's awesome. the continued distorted morphing bass through this next section is great as well, and the drum work in here is really superb. there's an extended build through 2:03 and then it goes nuts for a while. a tiny nitpick is that there's a lot going on in the low mids - it's not overly dense, but it's hard to grasp everything that's going on down there. there's a big hit at 2:17 where we finally get, over two minutes in, a real chord progression with sustains and everything. such a payoff! 2:45 is a shift in styles and is a huge fat edm beat that i can't get enough of. great idea to end it with a big style shift. the ending itself is a little sudden, but it works with how angular most of this is. the mastering isn't 100% bulletproof, but there's some really interesting stuff going on in here. the use of sfx and sweeps and distortion to keep everything constantly morphing and shifting is so technically impressive. excellent work. YES

opens with sustained strings and ambiance. bit of a LOTR vibe in the soaring string line. the bass instrument here seems really out of place compared to everything else going on. at 0:56 we start getting the bassline from marathon 2, and at 1:26 we get the main body of that theme. it feels pretty 90s for sure, but not in a good way. the lack of audible sidechaining on the kick and the synth guitar being the only instrument over the bass really doesn't feel nearly as fleshed out as the original (or other stuff by psykosnik) does...there needs to be something else filling in the freq range so it doesn't feel so hollow. also, the bassline at 1:57 isn't quite the bassline from M2 at 0:30 - the note before the highest pitch in the riff isn't right. the rhythm's recognizable for sure though. there's about 30s of copy/paste, and then 2:41's onto a new vibe entirely. this has some really nice cinematic elements. the lead tone - is that a high cello? - isn't very idiomatic but it's very lonely and evocative, i really like it. the arp's attack is a touch heavy and overlaps a bit which is a downer at the end of that section. 3:45 is back to the marathon 2 techno again. this all feels straight copied from the earlier section, which is a downer. 4:28's a new section, which is nice, although it's still struggling with the same issue (nothing between the bass and much higher lead instrument, drums are boring, no mastering really on this section). there's a high sustain before a rhythmic ending that doesn't quite work and needs more workshopping. then we get some ambience and it's done. this is really ambitious! there's a ton going on here, and i think from a story perspective the arrangement works really well. there's some really beautiful elements (like in the opening and at 2:41), and some that's really blah and needs some beef, like the techno sections. i think that reworking and spiffing up some of your synth choices will help a ton, as will dressing up some of the techno sections. NO

opens with detuned piano and some neat sweeping effects. that's a really neat effect at 0:27 on the filter, like gravitational lensing. there's some really delicate and pretty string work when they come in before 0:30 there. i also really like the snare when it comes in, there's a layered richness there that i really am into. 1:07's an escalation - it's still a little dense there (your bass instrument appears to have some overtones at ~96hz that are causing it to feel a bit dense, or maybe that's the low strings) but it's clearer than it was before, I think. there's some fun sfx after the 1:30 mark, and some neat rhythmic elements to keep it driving forward. the strings here started to feel a little copied in, given the repetition of the riff at 1:35 again at 2:00 or so. there's a staggered cutoff into 2:02's outro, and then it's done with some pingpong filter effects. this is a surprisingly broad adaptation of a completely different genre. there's a lot of little bits and bobs here and there that really add color to it. nice job. YES

looks like a lot of changes since the last time! that's great to see. the opening 7/8 groove is still great for this to highlight the arps. there is indeed a lot of distortion throughout, and as a result the track uses a lot of the audible freq range (much more of the high end than we usually see) - there's significant presence through 7khz which is really significant. the lead in particularly is boosted a lot, and there's a big spike at about 520hz and the subsequent octave (1040hz) when the instrument is around that C# range. it pops out a lot from the texture. i think having the lead be so heavily distorted/crushed as well really is a bit too much, the high-end noise is very grating after a while. 1:17's a shift with some panning elements. i think the lead distortion is more noticeable here - there's some high-end ring that's making my eyeballs itch. i like the doubling you add at 1:50 or so, but maybe just because it's not a distorted lead? also around here i noticed that the backing elements are roughly the same for the entire track up to that point. so i was looking for a shift to mix it up, and then at 2:06 it drastically changes! so that's good. it'd be nice to have that be more of a transition that ties the two sections together instead of just using the same lead and drums. i like the pacing of this section after the consistent beat - it's nice to have some slowdown. also - even this section is slammed against the limiter! the whole track is so loud, and this is just piano and a few synths, it shouldn't feel so blown. literally the entire track needs to go down by 3db. there's just no room to breathe. there's some fun synths and lfos at 3:34 as a transitional element and then it's back to a fuller section at 3:53. i wish the bass was a bit different here, but the extra backing glam helps this be not quite copy/paste from 1:50. there's at least some of an ending this time, which is also good, and then it's done. this is still very loud, and it's very distorted to the detriment of the piece, i think. most of the middle, from 1:00 through 3:20 and then 3:50 to the end, is visibly jammed against the limiter still. it just feels fatiguing to listen to. lowering the overall volume of every element so that it's not constantly hitting the limiter is going to help a lot. NO

opens with hugely loud snares and some synths behind it? and then the guiitars come in and i realize it's just very big arena-style mastering. the track sounds hugely scooped out - there's nothing in the mid range that i can hear, and it feels super blown with how noisy everything is. there's a ton going on in the low range where the bass and bottom string of the rhythm guitar are overlapping. i can hardly even hear the kick's beater tone, just some oomph from the bass end of it. opening synths are outlining the first part of the melodic line, if i'm not mistaken, without any of the rhythm. there's a break at 0:47 before we get back to balls-in-the-wall at 1:04, aping 0:55 in the original, i think. it plows through that material with another break at 1:49 for a few bars before building back up for the final blow at 2:04. the section from 2:04 through about 2:24 at least is straight copy from 0:17-0:47 outside the end fill, which is disappointing (for example, compare the fill at 0:39-0:40 to 2:26 and then compare the prior 20s or so for each spot). then there's one last fill and it's done. this is certainly a different feel from the original! i like the idea of throwing out the rhythmic elements entirely and just focusing on the pitches with a raging inferno of a band behind it. i think the overall shape of the track is solid too, with the different breaks in the piece and a shifting tone in the middle at 1:33. i think the mastering sounds really rough, though - i get wanting it to be this grungy, dirty tone, but it's so muddy down low (and normally I'm not the guy that cares about that!). the synth overpowers everything except the snare almost completely, and then the guitar, bass, and drum toms and kick are just sitting on top of one another. there's also a lot of sub-40hz content which is contributing to the mess. lastly, and this might be more personal preference - i didn't care for the guitar just strumming through the chords for most of the song. there may be more going on and it's just blown away by the synth being so loud, but the guitar really doesn't feel like it's doing much besides providing chorded background (and mud in the basement). i'd have wanted to hear it more involved in the arrangement instead of being on autopilot. i love the idea - i really do. i currently think this is enough arrangement ultimately if it was mastered better, but the mastering really drags it down. NO

Lucas Guimaraes - Arrangement, Master Minusworld - Production, Guitars, Bass, Synths, Mix MegadudeXD - Drums Source Breakdown: (It's in minor key, OG is in major ) - All melody is in the lead synths 0:00 - 0:20 - Intro [ORIGINAL] 0:21 - 0:48 - A Section [0:12 - 0:24] 0:49 - 1:04 - Modified B Section Transition [0:25 - 0:39] 1:05 - 1:52 - B Section [0:25 - 0:39] 1:53 - 2:06 - Original reprise 2:07 - 2:43 - A Section [0:12 - 0:24] the title and music tells all Games & Sources Delfino Plaza - Super Mario Sunshine

I cut lots of parts and converted the really dynamic pieces into an AutoChip Pulse rythm. I will be making more. Enjoy! Source: DJ Sofad 0:06 to 4:56

for those that care, i put a slightly altered new version above. i made some very subtle changes based on critiques around the opening bass drones and a freq pop that kris called out. i also backed off the sidechain just a bit to balance it better, at least partially by lowering the volume of one of the arps in the higher-energy section.