prophetik music

as always, thank you for a clear source breakdown.
opening starts with the title theme with a variety of transitional sweeps layered in. we start to get a beat at 0:36 and it picks up from there. this entire opening section feels pretty dull with the instrument choices - there's not much sparkle in any of them for them all being EP-like, and the kick is kind of blah - but we get some pop at 0:54 when the melody comes in. i love the time signature goofiness - the 7/8 section is absolutely the right choice there.
1:27 tones it back down again. there's a surprising amount of sustains that kind of just sit there (really expected to hear some blurbs to keep it moving through that), and the overall texture is still pretty dull outside of the sweeps. i felt like that past the 2 minute mark until about 2:10 when we started getting more percussive elements coming in and more brighter synths, and then again was in a happy place at 2:25 with the melodic material back in. this trucks through the melody of both tracks, and then it's done. the ending is a little abrupt but fits the style.
this track does a fantastic job of saying "wait just a bit longer for the part you want", and then it's there and it's great, and then the track's done and i'm putting it on again. this is a great compositional technique - always repeat one less time rather than one extra time! - and when the track pops, it really pops. i think you do a great job taking a track that's kind of already in your style and making it unique and yours without copying what made it good originally. nice work.
 
 
YES

your journey sounds significant, meaningful, and life-changing. i'm glad you're in a better place now.
opens with a filtered flourish and some pretty wild sfx, and the track starts at about 0:27. there's a really chillout vibe to this initially. i like the choice to use detuned synths to fit the spacey feel. beat hits at 1:39 and there's all sorts of fun ear stuff going on. there's a lot of higher freqs that were a little much for my ears - mostly overtones, but the cymbals and snare both felt really bright. there's a pretty wild solo at about the 2:27 mark, and we finally get a break from the pretty thick beat at 3:15. there's some new percs that come in soon after - the contrast between the fairly clean percussion and the heavily filtered backing pad is distinct but a fun combination.
we get some new stuff at 4:03, as there's some new ear candy in the build up to 4:27 and then to 4:36, and the increase in energy at 4:36 is great. you do a great job keeping a fairly static melodic line fresh and interesting through several minutes of consistent usage.
there's a recap at 5:20 of the earlier vibe with some extra bits on top, and then we hit the outro material. a few pads after the 6 minute mark and it's done.
this is a great arrangement! there's loads of unique stuff to keep it moving throughout. i think that i personally found the 2-3khz content in this to be bothersome on my headphones, but i don't think i'd have the same feel on other listening methods. i really appreciate the breadth of content throughout. nice work.
 
 
YES

when this came up ~18 months ago, i voted on this with primary criticisms being the balancing, frequency overload in the low mids, and the arrangement feeling meandering due to lack of dynamics.
opens with the ghost castle arp and a ton of really fun sfx work. some very industrial stuff is going on pretty far away, and the title screen's surprisingly chromatic melodic line comes in at 0:29. it's neat how well that works among a very spare background. the riff at 0:47 goes on for a long time and gets a little tiresome fairly quickly (that synth's delay effect was cool in small doses but is irritating with longer lines, especially since it's in one ear hard).
percussion drops a bit going into the textural shift at 1:16 - there's some new drums here as well, which are pretty hard to hear (especially the kick). the aquaduct arpeggio with the delay effect is back in the right ear and it's way louder than everything else. it gets toned back later which is good. this continues to wander around with the aquaduct theme in the front for a while. i found this section to be lacking in direction still.
there's a simplification at 2:07 alongside a time signature shift, and we're back to just the kitchen sink effects alongside the ghost castle theme for a bit. this section is neat with some of the counterpoint between the melody and counterpoint, but it feels underbaked both because of how thin it is here as compared to the drums chiming merrily along, as well as because it's the same synths as most of the rest of the song at roughly the same volume. it's hard to pull out that this is more or less important than other sections. i still find the transition at 2:37 confusing as well - it really sounds like the song suddenly ends, and there's no real prep or anything set up to come out of it either.
the synth work immediately following that break featured a few shifts that i found made it easier to pick out what was the most important. the texture here also feels more fleshed out. i didn't like that the lead instruments for this section were mostly in the right ear instead of centered. there's some fun stutter effects on the leads later on also that i liked. 
i don't think my opinion on this has changed yet. i still don't like the weird cut at 2:37, i still think the middle third drags, and i still think the lack of dynamics is a negative throughout. i don't remember the panned lead instruments before, but i find that to be irritating as well (i found myself turning my head regularly to the right to 'hear' the lead better) - in fact i think the piece is over-panned throughout.
from an arrangement standpoint, i think that you would be well-served by being more intentional bringing out the melodic lines you're trying to have us trace. you've got three sources, and tbh i think they work really well next to each other, but with that comes an imperative to be very intentional about how you emphasize and define what's where without losing the general song-form structure that you're using. the story here isn't as clear as it should be, and a big part of that is that the natural ebb and flow of a track isn't here due to there being little dynamics. i'm fine with a track that doesn't have a clear melody, but what is melody should be cohesive and readily apparent, and that's not happening here right now.
i do think you've fixed the mix a lot - i remember before the bass being totally overwhelming above everything else, and then all your instruments were very tightly mashed against each other. i think the bass is probably a bit overcorrected, but overall i found the mix to be passable aside from the panning stuff. my concerns are mainly with the song form and arrangement elements.
i have a lot to say here and it probably sounds like i hate it. i don't! i think there's some really neat concepts here, and a lot of overlapping back-and-forth stuff that reminds me a lot of old-school remixes that i loved. i just...i got done with the full listen a few times and just didn't remember a thing that happened in the middle of the piece outside of that panned synth being so annoying. that's not a good thing given the interconnected nature of this remix. the track doesn't go anywhere for an extended period of time. i actually think this is a fairly straightforward fix - just cutting some cruft out of the middle and emphasizing your melody more via non-delayed leads is probably enough.
 
 
NO

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

i YES'd this last time but noted a few elements that i wasn't into.
i still think the opening kick is too boomy (this might be a headphone adequacy issue here, there's a ton of subbass there). i still like all the interplay between the elements. there's less low-mid density which is nice. the outro's kind of all over the place, and without the backing elements the shamisen loses some luster. overall it's still a noodly melody that isn't for everyone, and there's still a lot of static and that's not my favorite backing element. but i like the complexity and find the creativity to be evident in a lot of places. this is still a pass to me.
 
 
YES

original's pretty upbeat in its own right.
opening is very similar to the original, right down to the drum beat, tempo, and lead performance. this goes on for quite a while - i A/B'd the entire length of the original on this track and indeed it's the same across the board. so this already isn't something that we'd really have a place for given the lack of original arrangement over the first half of the track.
right at 2:00 we get a new section, which is clearly inspired by but isn't really arranging the original. it's a sick synth solo though! i'd like to hear more verb on it, it's pretty dry right now. guitar has a note or two that's funky in the chord that it's over, and then hits a fun chord at 2:47 before a hard cut break to the piano playing the melodic material (in a non-idiomatic way, you really should find ways to break up the left hand's block chords and velocitize the entire thing). there's another run-through the original's last section and opening, and it's done. ending is solid.
i think this is a fun listen! i'd be happy to find this on youtube somewhere, but it doesn't meet the standards for arrangement that we require here. this is more of a cover with a little new section in the middle, which is hip in and of itself, but we'd expect more adaptation of the original's melody, chords, or other elements. i don't think this track would fit here without extensive modifications, but maybe future arrangements would fit more! take a look at the submissions standards i linked above (section 4 is the big one for you, the rest aren't as applicable for this) and hopefully we'll hear from you again.
 
 
NO

boy those pads in the original are noisy.
opens with a heavily modified voice clip and some swelling noise pads. we start to get the chord structure outlined at 0:48 in the plectral bell instrument. there's a lot of sound design going on in the build that starts at 1:10 - it's mega buzzy, but there's some really neat sweeping concepts coming in there as it gets bigger and bigger. percussion doesn't have much in the way of body in this build. 1:28 it starts to feel like it's arrived and the bass switches to a more consistent rhythm. bass elements in here are pretty dense and overpopulated so it's hard to really feel a beat. there's also not really that much that's the original in this entire first two minutes that's not just the chord structure.
we get a big shift at 1:47 in timbre. bass element has a ton of wooble on it so it's hard to really hear what it's playing. the timbre shifts again significantly at 2:25, including more trance hats and a big snare alongside some more heavily automated synths. i hear the first melody that i've heard in the entire thing at 2:35 in the low synth element - lots of movement on that tone which is neat. it's immediately buried under the ascending line that comes in right after that. we do get a bit more at 3:03 before another big shift to the sax. the stuff in the lower octave is a bit blatty but this setting works well for lucas's tone. i like the duet section as well as doubling his lines with the synth. the sax lines are heavily modified but do outline the melodic material roughly - it's pretty transformed however. the chorale section near the end around the 4:00 mark is a neat idea to layer into this - logical progression to get there but also very different from most tracks in a similar style.
there's some gameboy stuff and then an outro with sfx.
overall i think the first third is heavily disassociated with the rest of the track. everything before about 1:47 really feels like a totally different track other than the chord progression. i also wasn't really feeling the initial section at 1:47 - the bass is so hard to understand what it's doing due to all of the pitch modulation on it, and there's so many bass instruments that it all just gets lost. once we're through all that, the track really starts to find identity once it starts to get melodic material around 2:30. from there on out, i think there's a lot more cohesiveness in the approach and you scope through a bunch of different timbres without losing the voice. so i do think that more work is needing to be done on the first two plus minutes to tie it all together more. i believe that not bringing the melodic material in until well after two minutes in is part of this - you need a common thread to tie it together, and the ascending scalar riff you use mostly in the middle of the track doesn't seem to be enough.
to be clear - there's not 50% source usage in this track. i am not going to count a four-bar descending chord structure as source, it's too common of a progression. i hear melody at least occasionally between 2:35-2:55, 3:04-3:33, 4:12-4:24, and 4:33-4:52 (78 out of ~304 seconds, 26%). i'd consider additional connections between 2:35 and 4:52 if i was feeling really stretchy and positive, but most of this is chord-based and not melodic or motivic. to pass, i'd want to hear at least one clear declaration of the melodic material earlier in the track. if you'd submitted just from 2:35 onward, i might consider that enough source, as a rough example.
overall i also hear a ton of conflict in the lower ranges. there's a lot going on next to one another all the way through the freq spectrum, but especially down in the bass elements. i think this is a lot closer for a first shot than most of your tracks have been! but it's still not there yet.
to recap - EQing, cohesiveness, melody usage.
 
 
NO

my previous vote on this primarily focused around the mastering issues and that there wasn't enough unique perspective on each track (ie. the focus was more on the original's positives instead of the arrangement's positives). i don't remember how the piece sounded though, it was too long ago.
opens with filtered arps coming in - i like the wind sounds coming in here. the bass comes in with a martial feel around 0:12, and i think that the lead and countermelodic instrument have some nice movement on them. i can hear the schala arp behind it too which is a fun precursor. drums and other stuff that comes in at 0:36 is also neat. the hornet-adjacent lead add is a neat idea - having it have such a short sustain is a positive so it doesn't take up the entire soundscape. there's some subtle gating that starts 0:53 that i think is intentional and not limiter pumping - if so it should be a bit more obvious so that it's clear it's not unintentional. it's a cool effect.
there's a break right at the 1:00 minute mark that functions as a nice dovetail. schala theme comes in at 1:18. the beat here is nice and reminiscent of the ethnic percs that are throughout CT's soundtrack, and the constant varying of elements helps the slower tempo and schala's slower pace of the melody. there's another cool transition involving gating, and we're into some VO stuff.
2:30 is the return of the Terra b theme, this section felt a little lacking in direction. i didn't like all of the countermelodic elements (some are not quite voiced well enough to feel normal), and the turbo-pan thing going on was a little much on headphones. i also felt it was lacking energy coming out of the VO break, at least partially because the bass was often not on the root. 3:03 brings back schala (and the iconic ascending harp scale) - initially pretty low energy still, but quickly escalating via a variety of percussive and synth elements. i don't know if stacking the bass with the melody works in this section, but it's an interesting change.
after this is the outro, which wanders a bit through the schala arp until it hits the final notes, and then it's done.
this is a vast improvement over the last version. there's a ton of variety and added content here from when i last heard it, and the mix is a lot better too. i think it lacks a bit of energy in the back half and wanders a bit more, but i love the feel of the first half and the overall track does a great job navigating these two monumental originals. great work.
 
 
YES

this is an exciting matchup of composer and remixer.
starts off with some smooth bass and lead work. actual drums come in at 0:27. there's some really delicate plucks going on here that i really liked. beat drops at 0:55 and there's a slow build back up with some funky chords to mix it up in there. doubletime beat at 1:22 feels really good under the more disparate melodic elements in this section. the track trucks through more Aurora Magnitude with some really fun synth work to a second break at 2:17.
this break serves as a nice shout chorus to transition to the second interlude of Thicket Prism, and also to transition back down from doubletime to the original tempo. 3:27 was really nice. 3:33 was the last big hit, and we get some more plectral bells over the AM chords before it's done.
looking at the overall mixing, as expected there's a lot of detail work that's highlighted throughout. i did notice that there's a lot of body in the low mid range, like around 100hz, for most of the track. this doesn't make it feel cluttered but it is certainly more dense than i'd have expected from some other tracks by timaeus.
this is an obvious pass to me. the two tracks mix together very well and the realization here is excellent. it's an enjoyable listen that doesn't do the mind-bending chord stuff that truong often does but still delivers on a high-quality product. excellent work.
 
 
YES

opens with a kick-heavy beat and pads. there's a lot going on in the bottom 100hz and it doesn't have a ton of punch like i'd expect, and is somewhat dull. a synth bass comes in (in the same octave as the pad), and this progresses towards a break at 0:39 that adds some arps. there's some nice automation on the autopanned arp that works towards the front, although the panning is so wide it's a little confusing on headphones. this section drags a touch as it goes on as not a lot is going on during it, and there's not a lot to bring it back to the original outside that descending bassline (which isn't super unique).
the remixer puts the screws in at 1:16 and we get a lot more going on and a big beat right there. again there's not a lot used from the original outside that initial descending lick (no arp, none of the actual melody line). there's another break with some guitar at 1:55 - that was pretty fast getting back to the build - and again this section feels like it drags a bit as it kind of just is a repeated pattern over and over, and there's no crescendo or anything to build energy, just adding new instruments after a few bars. i'd love to hear some more automation like what you had the first time around, adding in additional elements and building energy towards your big payoff chorus at 2:33.
2:33 hits and we get the solo that was called out in the writeup. there's some fun licks in here but overall i'd want to hear more movement and leaning into the chords themselves some more. there's some repetition in here too which is a bummer - this is your time to shine creatively!
there's not really an ending, it just hits a note and it's done. there's a loud blap at the end that i think is the result of your volume automation not going to the end of the track.
this is a neat idea! i like the synth-rock vibe - so many people just make lavender town creepy (or totally blasted-out EDM), so the darkwave/synth rock feel is a neat one that definitely has legs. and i like a lot of your choices for instrumentation. i feel like right now this is a great framework, and what's needed next is some more glam. i'd love to hear more from the actual lavender town original (there's only really one synth line used throughout the track - i think there's room to use more!), and i'd love to hear a lot more ear candy in each section - especially the transitions. lastly i think that the track sounds a bit dull throughout, and finding a way to keep the kick meaty without having it walk all over some of your other synth elements would really help the mix pop. i'm sure @Chimpazilla can give some suggestions about the mix.
this isn't there yet! but it's a great start. the workshop discord can definitely help this get moving.
 
 
NO

In the shadows, we stay busy. ;-)
Joining us as a Sage, we now have @Treyt, who's shown off a lot of skills, enthusiasm, and potential since his fateful forum post nearly three years ago!
We're proud to announce some staff promotions with the twin magic of Sages @pixelseph & @paradiddlesjosh stepping up to become two of our newest judges! We had some fun internally joking that they were a package deal, yet I'm happy to say they both independantly have done well and proven themselves capable to help us out in this new capacity on the panel!
We've also honored to have another judges panel addition in @jnWake, who cut his teeth in OCR way back and has massively grown since becoming a Dwelling of Duels regular! All three of the new judges should help us NO every VGM arrangement submitted to us with more speed, politeness, and class. ;-D
Be sure to use our resources in the Workshop forums and our #workshop Discord channel and you may just get some feedback from our new staffers!

opens with some great EPs and organ. there's a really organic feel to this due to the timing being pretty loose initially. i'd recognize that chapman anywhere - one of my favorite sounds in Trillian! - and some fun bell elements. we get a beat at 0:43 and the melodic material to the fore. this is a really deep, low representation of the chorus material which is fun. there's a point at 0:58 where the melody is on an A and the bassline is on a Db, which is a little weird-sounding but is supported by the chord structure.
there's a break right at 1:05 to recap the opening a bit. the sweeps through here are really nice. this builds up through some fun flute-adjacent noodles to the melody again at 1:49. i like the shift at 2:11 to a more upbeat feel as well, as we'd kind of done the other stuff for a while now. there's again some funky chord structures at 2:19 - i'm not going to analyze them since they sound roughly correct to my ear, but they're funny as a transitional element! 
we get through some original material as a transitional element. there's a half-time groove here that i didn't see coming but really like, and it builds into 3:15 where we get some taikos or toms alongside the main melodic snippet. this floats through a bit more of that snippet and then it's done.
what a fun track! there's all sorts of interesting ear candy going on in here as i listen. you do a great job taking a fun and straightforward original and exploring some really varied elements.
 
 
YES

This song marks my first non-OCR project entry and my debut in Dwelling of Duels (DoD)! Participating in DoD was a super nerve-wracking experience, right up until the month's long-play, where I was utterly flattered by the community's response. While most of the track came together quickly, I spent a significant amount of time fine-tuning, with the final drop and cinematic/foley aspects coming together only in the last few weeks. I was unsure how the crowd would respond to a more Trap-based drop, especially since I rarely venture out of my typical EDM styles. Needless to say, I was blown away, not only by how well it was received, but also by the fact that it placed 5th for the month. It was truly an honor to participate, and the light-competition framework kept me glued to the process, in a way that made me feel like I really leveled up my production quality...that said, let’s ignore the fact that the live MIDI recordings were performed using my typing keyboard (special thanks to extra-clicky green switches). I wish I could point to a direct set of song references for most of the track, but most everything was pretty much from my gut instincts, except for the final drop, which was strongly guided by RL Grime's "Formula".
Making a full-length submission entirely on my own and having it so well-regarded was incredible, but it’s amazing what a solid mastering from Chimpazilla can do to your track. Her work took it to another level, and she was super insightful with coaching on actionable feedback on the track; I am so grateful it gets to exist the way it does via their efforts on it. That, and they're just a super cool human being, it has been great to get to know them recently!
The track wasn’t written with a specific theme in mind, but looking back, it feels like it tells a story similar to Pikmin’s—one of loss, rediscovery, and rebuilding. Over the past few years, I’ve experienced significant losses and challenges, which resonate with Olimar’s crash-landing into the unknown and starting over with only the bare essentials. The intro reflects that sentiment. If you’ve played Pikmin, you know the game can be unforgiving—you can lose a lot very quickly if you’re not careful. The track mirrors this at the midway point with the shift to Indian percussion, stripping away the Chill-Hop vibe. It also captures the feeling of regaining strength and confidence, like when your Pikmin army grows, and you feel ready to tackle any challenge. These dualities—loss and recovery—reflect my own experiences with jobs, relationships, and stability, often swinging between extremes.
The overarching note of this song is the idea of landing somewhere completely unexpected, making the best of where you’re at, and then launching forward to continue where you intended to go. This is both the main purpose of the game itself and a very real experience in my own life in multiple ways. Coming to OC Remix after years of feeling like I didn’t fit in, only to have my first submission finally accepted. Moving into a house full of strangers I thought I wanted to be around, only to realize there are better people to surround myself with. Leaving a comfortable job riddled with toxicity and non-stop lies, enduring a streak of work-related low points, only for it to lead me to finding the greatest position I’ve ever held. Losing the sanctity of proper health insurance due to an undefined medical concern, facing extreme ambiguity as new coverage claimed they couldn’t help, and then receiving a last-second approval and a benign mass diagnosis. Clinging to the stress of maintaining a half-friendship with someone who only mimed the acts of caring, only to finally let go and bask in the freedom and self-respect that followed. And so forth. Life has felt like a swinging metronome of deep losses followed by tremendously fulfilling wins. Being a part of multiple OCR projects, receiving a heavily fought-for promotion, ranking high in DoD, and navigating health coverage for various specialists have all paralleled the sentiment behind making and submitting this song, as well as the emotions imbued within it.
The source track, 'Forest of Hope', unintentionally complements this narrative. The game is set up as a series of trials to rebuild your ship, and sometimes that’s exactly what tackling music projects feels like: gathering the tools, knowledge, and confidence to succeed. If OCRemix and Dwelling of Duels are the 'Forest', then their communities are the 'Hope'.
This song is dedicated to everyone who encouraged me to settle into the OC Remix space and the DoD community, who have been so supportive and shared amazing feedback on my tracks! I’d love to list everyone, but it would be 30+ people long, so I’ll say this:
Special thanks to Wes, Chimpazilla, the (~*Super*~) Pixel Bros. + all the Workshop regulars (especially JSAblixer and Meldecision, but really everyone there), Liontamer, Hemo, Dyluck, Darkflamewolf, Xaleph, Colorado Weeks, and Prophetik, as well as so many DoD folks I still have yet to get to know better (TheManPF, Tuck, and more). Also some more indirect inspirations who probably have no idea who I am but are nonetheless inspirational forces: omega-thanks to bLiNd, PrototypeRaptor, Zircon, and Flexstyle.
Games & Sources Pikmin - Forest of Hope (entire track duration)

opens with foley and voiceover elements, As Is Tradition for a VQ track. i don't know where the melodic material happening behind the voiceovers comes from. some more elements come in around 1:50 and there's some keyboard elements that are lacking in velocitization, but there's some interesting textures being used here as more and more orchestral elements come in. there's a transition around 2:40ish with some horns, and they don't sound great - really blatty and far away, i think there's some extra processing on them that's causing them to sound more distant and lacking in attack than you'd expect.
there's a hard shift at 3:03 to the organ as a lead instrument. there's a bass with some attack modulation on it, and a few other elements added in like some strings and bells as a percussive element. this instrumentation doesn't blend at all with the prior section, it lacks intensity as compared to the original and what's been brewing in this remix so far, and i honestly am having trouble mapping it to the original as more than just the chord structure if even that. the chords that enter with the vordt theme also feel transformed beyond where their relationship to the original is not apparent. most of these instruments have a lot of bass content as well and they've overlapping a lot (an issue i run into with organ often). this noodles through the chord progression, continues to feel muddy and indirect with motion, and then hits a big section of falling action at 4:56.
5:42 is the Holy Blade section. the representation here again feels like there's no clear direction for a while, with the instrumentation kind of all doing its own thing and not coming together to a cohesive thing until 6:20. i can hear the adaptation of the Holy Blade descending riff here much clearer, which is good. the original's intensity and verve isn't present, which is kind of an interesting albeit confusing correlation against the fairly intense vocal lines and speed increase at the 7 minute mark. the entire section starting around 7:20 is probably the most cohesive section you've got in the entire piece, but i'd say that also it's still rife with similar issues as before, like the big buzzy bass instrument taking up a ton of frequency range and a lead that's hard to hear what's going on, and overall it's wandering instead of feeling like it's got a driving melodic element that's leading it. there's a sudden break and then the end comes out of nowhere.
overall i don't care for most of the direction of the work at all. i feel it's way more focused on the voiceover than on the music in the first several minutes and a few significant chunks after that (like between a quarter and a third of the track feels voiceover-driven). separately i feel it wanders throughout without focus on a melodic element or even a timbral element - there's no direction, and so it's hard to keep track of what's going on. the majority of the work, it's not clear where the music is coming from - it's either so heavily transformed or reduced that i can't map it. lastly, in several sections including the organ part at 3:03 and the holy blade section, there's a lot of overlapping elements in similar frequency ranges, so it's hard to understand aurally what's going on where.
i'd be remiss to say that i just don't get a lot of the dynamics and 'story' of the work overall. there's some neat building action through the first few minutes, but the release of that energy is...the horn section around 2:40, which doesn't use it at all. then there's another big build into the organ section, and that almost immediately disperses the build into a chordal exploration that i had trouble identifying where it comes from. similarly, the end of this section falls off almost immediately into a big voiceover-focused section that actually has no music playing for several seconds in it. the shape and macro direction of the work is not clear.
these are not easy fixes. i think that making the correlations to the originals in the earlier sections will make the volume (and volume) of the voiceovers more palatable, even if i think most of them are gross-sounding (not a horror fan, sorry). i think that really taking a critical eye to the organ section at 3:03 and EQing and/or changing instrumentation and instrument ranges so as to avoid some of the overlapping freqs will make that section easier on the ears. i also think that taking a look at the sections where the references to the original are basically just chord changes (long sections, like the two minutes after the organ comes in, or most of the minute before that) with very modified moving lines above them, and finding ways to tie those clearly and directly to the original will help a lot. lastly, finding ways to more consistently handle the builds and releases of the energy you build up in some of these sections would help immensely. i kept feeling let down when builds and ensemble crescendos didn't go anywhere - it happens four or five times at least throughout the work.
it's going to sound like i didn't enjoy much of this at all. to be honest, i didn't! but it's not required for me to enjoy the piece in order to critique the technical and arrangement elements. right now the scope and vision feels too big. i think overall that this needs a lot of transformative work to reign in the wilder bits and focus it more, so as to be more effective at conveying what you're trying to convey. right now it's a wildly imaginative, visionary, probably over-extending attempt.
 
 
NO

opens with a slick bass groove. vocal elements at 0:10 are quite sharp in terms of frequency - siblants especially are quite bright. there's some Hurry in there and then it's back to the original lick. we finally get some full voice at 0:46, with some full band sound. it's surprisingly light under the voice part - there's guitar mostly in the right ear, bass and drums, but nothing that i'd call rhythm guitar or a pad that i can hear. it drops down again for a verse/spoken section at 1:00 or so, and this works through some more alternate sections of spoken word and singing. the singing is hard to hear cut through the band sound - it doesn't look like there's much formant boost on some of those sections, i'm wondering if boosting ~2200hz would help it cut.
the band section after this is super technical and sounds great, i especially like the tom work. the chorus following has a lot of sections with the singer singing higher notes and not much underneath them - this doesn't sound particularly strong since there's little to connect the two elements. there's a build with some growls through 2:15 which is a transition point. the Tool influence is immediately recognizable when it comes in, hard to miss on the drum solo with repeated guitar parts over top. this is pretty darn close to the original Tool influence.
the tom section ends with more call/response of singing and growls, and there's some off-signature Hurry elements as an interim section here. a bit more call and response, some rhythmic elements, and it's done.
if i am honest, there are sections of this that i don't care for pretty strongly. i felt that the sections with the vocalist up high and there being little to no harmonic support underneath (like at 1:50) really felt unbalanced. from a technical standpoint, the vocal elements for the most part were executed competently, but there's a few times where approximants like the 'w' sound in "wide awake" at 2:10 or 3:16 took too long to come out and sound schmeared as a result. the band-only sections are technically proficient (3:09 is insanely flashy), extremely fun to listen to, and influenced heavily enough by the Tool source track to the point that there may be concerns from some judges. separately, from an arrangement standpoint, the arrangement is freaking nuts, guys. this is a beyond awesome adaptation of two really fun originals, and they're interwoven enough that it's not just one's the verse and the other's the chorus. i mentioned a few times that i feel that support was needed to lash everything together, but from a 500-foot level, this is bananas. lastly, from a mastering standpoint, my main complaint was the heavy siblant sound from some of the spoken word elements - beyond that, this sounds super clean and well-handled.
i think there's a few missteps. but overall this is an incredible concept with some truly superlative execution on the instrumental side and overall excellent arrangement. nice work.
 
 
YES

i heard this back in early august and loved it then, so i'm excited to hear how it changed since then.
opens with some water sfx, some beautiful chords and reversed piano elements, and an out-of-time chirping that reminds me of Bon Iver yet again. the feel of not being in a specific tempo in this opening section, combined with the physical elements of some of the instruments, is just so rich and inviting. the bass comes in at 0:54 and is very enveloping as well, although i found the patch to be a touch rough down low initially. there's some fun overtone-heavy guitar elements that are being layered in through this section that i really like.
there's a big crescendo into 1:29's string entrance - the strings entrance and the subsequent sustains are a little heavy for me, but i see how you're using them to drive intensity. we start to get some percs alongside the arpeggio and sustained melodic elements, and it continues to build through those elements for over a minute. the strings feel a bit forced through some of this section overall - i wouldn't have minded hearing them handing off with another lead element occasionally.
there's a bit of a break with some acoustic guitar, and then we finally start to get the real build with drums. this gets pretty noisy as it gets to the climax around 3:35ish, and then we finally get the payoff hit at 3:42. guitar sounds great in here (may be a tiny bit loud), and the drums are excellent - i love how crunchy they're mastered, lots of character in the tone. there's a lot going on in this big section but i can still hear everything, which is great. it's a little heavy in the 1k range or so. i really liked the lead guitar layering in alongside the strings.
the track maintains intensity for a long time, like two minutes - normally i'd say that's way too long without a break, but this feels good and strong and doesn't feel overwhelming. we finally hit the last chord at 5:18 and it's a drop from there alongside the ring-moddy guitars and some sfx. the bass cuts out abruptly mid-outro rather than fading out - i'm guessing that's accidental.
this is a real journey of a piece. the melody is such that it feels a little noodly in the original, but the pathway it takes you down feels very familiar and comfortable. it's neat to see that same melody used in such a different manner, to take you down such a similar yet different path. this is an excellent example of a significant genre shift without losing the soul of the original piece. nice work.
 
 
YES

opens with some broad, sweeping pads, and an adaptation of the brinstar bass that i didn't expect. the iconic melody line comes in at 0:35 alongside some very wet percs that sound fantastic. there's some big transitional elements right before a break at 0:59, and we start to get a build that culminates at 1:21 with The Beat that we're going to hear for the next several minutes. i love the chorus feel at 1:43 - there's a breadth to it that feels really otherworldly. i found myself wishing there were more rhythmic elements in the synths here - there's tons of ear candy and random pops of stuff going on, but having something automated in there would have been really nice.
there's a bit of a drop and build into 2:18 with the guitar taking the lead. i love how this sounds, and i love the more dynamic and rhythmic bass element here as well. this drops to a half-time vibe at 2:42 with again some dynamic bass and synth elements moving in and out of the texture, followed up by a doubletime (4x change!) feel right after that's got tons of technicality in the performance. love the contrast.
after that is another drop and build, this time with a significant vibe shift at 3:49. i found this to be a very significant shift and would have liked a smoother transition actually - there's not a ton of corollaries between the two sides. i love the darker vibe of this section though. the ending didn't feel particularly prepped, but i don't think it's bad - i just didn't see the end coming until it was here (kind of like my super metroid runs... =/ )
as expected, a superlative effort. there's so much going on and it's so clearly handled throughout. excellent 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

The Judges Panel has been talking about ways to work through the queue of submitted remixes at a faster pace, and after a lot of discussion and weighing the pros and cons, we've come to a decision that's probably one of the biggest adjustments to our process in a long time:
Submissions no longer require four (4) YES votes to pass. A decision is reached as soon as the difference in votes is three (3).
To clarify the key change here: when a submission receives three (3) YES votes and there are zero (0) NO votes, the submission is accepted, because the difference in votes is three (3).
If a submission continues to go back and forth without reaching +3 in either direction, the panel will continue to vote until all active judges have voted and the majority will determine the decision.
This update to our decision making process will immediately apply to any submissions on the panel at the time of this announcement going live, and for all decisions moving forward. We won't be going back to previous rejections to find decisions that started with three (3) uncontested YES votes but eventually got rejected; in those cases, what's done is done.
We hope that artists will find this new criteria a little bit easier to understand. Overall, we've been impressed with the quality of work being sent in these past months, and this should make it easier for us to get the slam dunk tracks through the process faster.
Thanks to all the artists who continue to participate in our curation process. Hope to hear your work soon.
- DarkeSword

nickel creek's one of my favorite bands, and TLT is one of my favorite songs by them. i love how each chorus builds on the prior. if folks haven't ever listened to 'progressive' bluegrass, i highly recommend it.
opens with a bell arp. the arp's really loud compared to the melodic element that comes in pretty quickly after. the strings that eventually come in are also really not great - they don't feel N64 to me, they just sound fake. the 'full' band sound comes in at 0:43, and the lead feels a bit weak in this section as well as slow (the attack feels a touch behind). there's no real bass through here either, but there is a kick. the lack of beater tone on the kick makes it hard to hear except for where you can feel it.
sad girl comes back at 1:43, and there's some weird mallet strike tones through here that would add realism if they weren't repeat strikes next to each other. the strings come back in, and i'm still not feeling them here. the eventual synth lead elements that come in at about 2:34 are really loud, and the lack of balance makes it hard to hear what's going on. i like the patience that comes with the chords after this section, although i think they should be a little closer together as they're encroaching on 'too long since sound' territory.
at 3:07 we get copypasta from the opening 40s, and then subsequently more copy pasta from the band section from 0:43 to around 1:35. there's a repeated phrase at the end, one last arp, and a few sustains.
i think that the combination of these two originals works really well together. i like the idea of focusing initially on bells and then building up to a bigger band tone, and i like the introspective approach and patience that you show. i think that your synths are letting you down throughout, and your DAW's letting you down from a mastering perspective. everything that isn't a bell sounds cheap and fake, and volumization throughout is a mixed bag. this needs a good amount of work, but there's good bones here. i think that the discord or the workshop forum would help a ton with this track.
 
 
NO

well, ok then.
opening is definitely a stylistic mashup. love the way you took metallica's vibe and make it work with these tracks so well. at 0:46, though, this is almost straight Metallica for like 30s straight. the melodic adaptation is indeed tenuous, especially when you consider it's two bars out of hundreds in the original (admittedly they are very recognizable bars). at least the chorus is more from the Rival track. the singing works great, it's realized well, and seph does a good job with it. i'm just not sure it's not too much metallica.
the transition riff is back to the final battle riff, and then another verse (same caveats as before). the bridge works well to bring together the style and original into a better combination that's more in balance of the original. there's then 30 seconds of insane solo battle, because that's literally what the originals are about, and a bunch more instrumental sections that go through various elements of the sources. the end of the false chorus section at like 3:50 was pretty hip.
the track cycles back to one more verse and chorus dyad, a quick riff, and it's done.
the performances here are nuts, as expected. the three main performers are among the best in the local community at doing this kind of stuff, and it shows. there's a ton of synergy in the performance, it's intense and complex without being overly meandering or relying on tropes to make it work, and it's mixed very well by xaleph as well. the arrangement concept is also great. my concern is just that the verse's connection to the original works is essentially academic. it's tough to map the vocal lines to the original, although your timestamps make it clear once you've A/B'd it.
i think what's here overall is probably distinct enough from Metallica to be ok. but this is the second really fun track from you guys that's come through recently that's been very, very close to a mainstream original. you need to be careful as you're treading a line here that we (the judges) don't want to more clearly define because of how subjective it can be.
 
 
YES (borderline)
edit 10/25: larry's numbers make it clearer than i originally thought that this is not 'probably too much Metallica', it's just plain too much. i didn't realize it was over a quarter of the track. sorry guys, sick track, but not for here.
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

I liked seeing Chimpzilla bring up Tangerine Dreams. I wouldn't have thought that myself but now I totally hear it. And its just a great remix as well!

Really love that..... I'm not even sure what it is. Gated brown noise? Some sort of rhythmic effect that sounds really cool.

Great synths throughout. Love the whole thing!

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