zykO

i apologize if i come across as too critical here given how obviously surehanded and experienced you are at doing this sort of thing but i'm also incredibly picky with zelda arrangements and not particularly fond of this style of medley lol first things first, very ambitious effort stuffing this much source material into 6 plus minutes. Especially when it is in a station-to-station type of medley that moves much like a march or a parade as you suggested was part of the inspiration for this. in fact, that is my main criticism of the track; it's too dense and moves on too quickly at points. i am typically not a fan of these kinds of medleys because they feel gimmicky, rushed and, with the exception of a few of the themes, unexplored. i get that, in essence, the medley in and of itself is the exploration but it is a style that always feels like i'm being lead on a track at Jurassic Park and right when you get to the T-Rex and you wanna take a closer look, you literally have to jump out of the window just to do so... and this is no knock on your skills, dude, not at all; this is the same problem that i have with the VGL orchestral medleys and the Zelda in concert medleys and all the other ones as far as i'm concerned. THAT SAID (and now that i got my anti-station-to-station-medley bias out of the way) this is amazing haha what stands out to me is how considerably more creative a couple of the stops on your "parade" are than those of most medleys tend to be. for example, the lost woods usually gets butchered in zelda medleys because it's too goofy a source to quietly fit into the seriousness of an orchestral piece covering half a dozen tonally different sources but your arrangement of it is awesome. damn near cartoonish in the best way possible. very expressive arrangement that's full of action and ....well... BLAH< IT ENDS AFTER 30 SECONDS (I F'NNN HATE MEDLEYS, MAN. IT'S BASICALLY MUSIC FOR RITALIN BABY SMURFS lol). definitely change your title. i mean you don't have to but Zelda Medley 2014 isn't a title, it's a description. you kicked ass with this, bud. very pro work here. it's an easy yes. YES

whoooooaaaa i don't do all that source breakdown stuff; ya know, i give the eye test with my ears and this is earsex because i can hear the sources in there, albeit mangled with your brilliant (and liberal) arrangement of them. it's more marble garden than it is azure lake but that's by design and that's fine because it's the better source lol it passes my "eyear" test. that said, production values are on point of course. the chops here are ace across the board, nice showcase of really strong phrasing sensibility; you know when to "say" things and when not to "say" things. over all, a very entertaining tune that stays busy for 3 minutes and some change... does a lot, goes a lot of places. it's active like nike, thick like minaj, stays fresh like farmer's market, and overall satisfies me like... umm..... i don't like the anticlimactic ending but that's just as small a quip as they come and bears nothing more than a mention in light of how awesome everything else is. anyway, no surprises here. amphibious always comes with it. YES

yeah whatever you start this track with doesn't even sound like a guitar; in fact, the instrumentation here is all very much general midi with the exception of the drumkit (and more specifically the oddly decent sounding cymbals! lol WUT). hate to be a sample snob but it's just not up to par for the site regardless of the arrangement and doesn't leave much more to say... except that said, i do think there are some interesting ideas here that i really wish you would work on. this is a little too far from where it has to be even for a RESUB vote so it's gonna have to be a straight NO but there is some hope here: 1) you have neat metal-ish ideas that are lost in a novice execution. a great example is the sped up transition at 2:45; the idea is a clever one but on its own doesn't do anything as it lacks any energy or punch and is surrounded by a very drab arrangement. there are several moments like that one, that span a bar or two, that are simply lost in the midst of this track 2) you've gotta find a way to get your hands on better sounding instruments. visit VST4Free.com and get equipped! 3) your arrangement is boring. a great choice of source and idea of goin metal with it but the reprise of the main section has to offer something new of some kind; a new chord voicing, a varied lead, harmony, something. it can't just repeat. even for a short 3:13, you want the situation where 3 minutes feels like 6 because it does so much. not because it does so little. manipulate time through value phrasing ie make your musical sentences say more with less words, just like poetry. 4) it's ok to abandon goin for "COOL METAL" and instead goin for "ZANY WTF" - you gain points (at least in my book) for doing that. be fearless. as it stands, this is a very gunshy effort. you've got a decent start here. only problem with it as as submission is that it is just that. NO

the arrangement is frickin awesome, dude; obviously. put together better than the original as if this was the intended uses of the respective sections. that alone gets the Y even if i have to agree that it is almost too clean lol i'm partial against synth guitars (oh the horror! lol) but this is pretty good work (shreddage is win). not nearly enough to take away from the Y, that's for sure. this just wins on so many organizational, compositional levels that i can't get hung up on how tight it sounds or how unlively the guitar sounds (warning: extreme bias) YES

this is actually a very tough call it is most certainly intentionally sparse, intentionally thin and intentionally minimal. like others have said, it's basically (whether this is intentional or not) a homage to old school scene offerings. this reminds me of my first few stumbling steps into the world of ocremix so many moons ago. in that respect, this is on point. where this fails to deliver is in compositional energy; it just doesn't do enough beyond a fairly straightforward interpretation of the source. the phenomenon others call repetitiveness lol i can look past its production as it really works as a throwback fan-made remix the likes of which we haven't heard in over a decade. does that mean it fits within 2015 OCR guidelines? tough to say. the track doesn't utilize much of the soundfield, has very simplistic instruments that play the same thing relatively over and over again, and the ending is either noobish or trollish. and isn't that what made this whole remixing thing fun to begin with?? like i said, it's a really tough call for me. i like it enough to call it a resub and lean on the panel and their expertise to guide this thing home to where it meets what is expected of submissions. RESUB

in love with the intro. very 80s feel to the tune in general, especially when the lead that comes in at 1:40 takes the track to a whole new place. for me, this was the highlight of the track which up to that point had been taking a bit long to get goin (albeit pleasantly). you got your depeche mode cred card nice and laminated, i see. great arrangement. now that i hear it, it seems so painfully obvious that the lead from "Awakens" would ride the rhythmic "Out of Phase" synth accompaniment. Like DUH lol good ear. the synth work is generally very good, very detailed and with a confident touch. the drums are a bit weird for me; i like the writing a lot and i think they are solid dynamically... but they're mixed so thin, it steals some of the thunder the track could have. i am not as bothered by the panned LFO'd synth as others may be... i think it's perfect in just one channel, it forces the listener to focus on it there and gives the mix what i like to call head-pivot which isn't exactly headroom (expanding on the idea of characterizing the soundfield in terms of space, head-pivot characterizes the soundfield in terms of perspective like wearing an audio occulus, so to speak). i think it is a nice touch. as far as the intangible things with this; i'm so down with it. it totally captures what you're setting out for it to capture. it's pensive and thoughtful. it's sparse and repetitive, very mechanical but without being stiff; not an easy accomplishment and indicative you know what you're doing and why. you use space well; like how dropping out the accompaniment near the end of the track to leave the "Out of Phase" syncopated synth alone in space is ACE. very lonesome and terrifying... like floating in space and watching the world unfold before your eyes and being anxiously riveted by the overwhelming realizations that come with such a perspective. the one knock i can see, other than beefing up the drums a bit, is that ending. i like fadeouts, personally, i think they have a place in music when done tastefully and this one is borderline tastefully done. part of me likes that you briefly touch the A section again en route to black, i think it's giddily creative... but i also think it detracts from its accessibility just by gauging our collective reaction to it. YES (tweak and go)

i don't mean to simply echo chimpy on this but yes; the idea is great, the execution not so much. i like the orchestration a lot. quirky synths mashed with traditional "celtik" instruments = WIN. the arrangement, sadly, falls onto its face. it doesn't even explore its own self let alone the source; it's A-B-A-B-END. Very unimaginative. and the end is just HUH WTF? clocking in at two and a half minutes, you had plenty of "room" to explore this thing and take it other places. and it isn't just the missing outro... it's also missing an intro! My suggestion is to go back and rethink what you are trying to accomplish with this track, like what it's vision is, what it is you are trying to have it do. It essentially feels directionless at the moment, like you came up with this cool 30 second idea of contrasting a wonky synth with a celtic flute and then stopped your creative process there, copy-pasting the rest of the piece to fill out an uneventful two and a half minutes. you're on the right track but you're very early on that track. NO

ferocious. and that's pretty much where the buck stops. the compression has been mentioned quite a bit already but it's worth mentioning again; there is no dynamic in this at all. the extent of the dynamics in this track are when you force it with breaks that go 0-to-60 contrasting silence with LOUD. other than that, instrumentally, there is nada. the drums are the worst recipient of this. there's no reason why the kick and snare should nearly sound equally as loud. i know that snare tone is a matter of taste for many but i simply don't like this snare at all when it sits by itself in the soundfield. buried under the massive overdriven mix above it, sure, it isn't nearly as irritating but when it is not masked, it is abrasive. and LOUD. guitar is cool. you've got chops. arrangement is too straightforward to help the track out. if it explored the source more and took it to different places, it'd have helped a lot. i'm sorry but this track sounds like it's meth'd out. even when you break it down around 2:30, it doesn't feel like any kind of respite at all. it is still loud, intense and pretty much unchanged. I'd like to wait until we figure out if there's something going on with the compression en route to us but as it stands, if this is what it sounds like, my vote is a NO.

what stands out immediately is that you bedded the two sources together and came up with something that isn't an abomination! sometimes, the trick to merging multiple awkwardly fitting sources (as would be expected in a compo) is to give one the lead and let the other follow; the mix doesn't have to be 50-50 or fair (in other words, to hell with that annoying pirate island theme lol). you sorta did that... what stands out in a not so good way is how boring the orchestration is :\ the track doesn't feel like it does anything or goes anywhere right from the get-go. then there's that snare. first of all, what snare? lol the only reason i know it's a snare is because it occupies the space where a snare normally would be but otherwise, i can't get with it; there's no pop to it. what's more problematic is that it plays a huge role in the beat, it basically carries it. not a good look. as far as the rest of the instrumentation, i'm not digging anything beyond the chip solo... which by the way, ROCKED. it is just lacking energy for a piece that basically needs it to function. NO (resub)

gorgeous. conservative as sarah palin's underpants but certainly a beautiful piece of music. you've basically embellished the original piece with a subtle underbelly of countermelodies and giving it a more polished sound (sans the mixing which as others have pointed out is a tad bit unorthodox). speaking of which. i'm kinda ok with that, honestly. it isn't jarring by any stretch of the imagination (we have the supple nature of the piece to thank for that) but i can see how the reverb sounds "boomy." to me, it simply stretches out the track's ether and warms the soundfield like bathing you in the soft glow of a morning summer sun. perhaps from a strignent audiophile perspective, it's a baddddd but to me, it just sounds lovely. i want to echo palpable on the higher string articulations; it is really the only place the track loses me as the strings start to lose its organic calm and become shrill. but really, all in all, a minor quip. whatever you're doing here works and is so pristinely calming and pretty (i can basically listen to this for hours on repeat), it deserves a little more exploration compositionally. but that is hardly a reason to fail it. YES

yeah this is total resub territory. the good. genre is on point. you accomplished exactly what you were saying you were trying to as far as harkening back to old school horror and surf vibes; totally strikes me as something i'd hear in a bruce campbell flick. that's awesome. also feels like something that i'd want to play team fortress 2 on halloween to lol all the while watching the incredibles (there's a lot of giacchino in this, good call). the trilly horns are a nice touch. the arrangement is cool in the way cool 80s kids were cool, rockin airwalks and ripped jeans; love it. plenty of the source here, no qualms with me. the ending is a satisfactory tie-in and wrap up for the track. now the bad. the kit is indeed way too weak. i understand the stylistic choice especially given the genre you're goin for but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be brittle as a dandelion. don't bring it out TOO much but certainly bring it OUT, give the drums some life and you're well on your way to making the second half of the tune much jumpier. the first half of the track does take a while to load but then again, who am i to judge lol ZYKO AIN NO JDG DAFUQ. i personally love the slow cook, rollin intro but it might take too much time to develop for some, less patient, listeners. strikes me more as scored music, perfectly workable if there's something to watch along with it. and again, i feel your film score homage here. i'm all about this tune but it does need a little more TLC before it's ready to roll. do this and gloriously joyous terror will be stricken into the hearts of many an unsuspecting videogame nerd RESUB

what jumps out at me almost immediately with this track is that it sounds like a guitarist with some fairly nice chops who built this arrangement around that fact. that's ultimately why the guitar feels "pasted on top" of the mix... because in essence, it is; on its own, the lead guitar is just from an entirely different planet from the rest of the track which behind it doesn't do much beyond giving it a bed to lay on... but no sheets, comforters or even a pillow as for the arrangement, it's funky fresh and cool but doesn't do anything. the orchestration is where the track shines in that it marries all the proper pieces to give us that "funky" chrono trigger deal but in the end, none of the accompanying parts do anything beyond very conservative typecast phrasing. and that isn't even taking into account the synth trumpet that is, as Chimpy perfectly characterized, is either too fake to be real or too real to be fake but ultimately, not convincingly either one. the idea is ace. the guitar playing, once you free yourself from the first few bars of rote licks and scale-pushing, is also pretty ace. the arrangement and orchestration, sadly, is where it falls short and feels flat and uninspiring. the ending is nonexistent and not in that provocative, envelope-pushing, artistic way... more in that got-lazy-and-didn't-end-the-track way. this is certainly not a NO. I urge you to work these things out, get more creative with what you're doing with the accompaniment, liven up that trumpet lead (lose the mod flutters, they sound more like the kind a flute makes) and give the lead guitar (a nice, grimy vintage tone btw) some help in the mix and you've got yourself a winner RESUB

http://www.zykomazika.com/blog/?p=94

i believe what you are referring to is "punching in" and there is utterly no shame in it. in fact, i'm a little surprised there's extensive talk on this granted, i'm the sort of guitarist that doesn't punch in and relies on "realism" to explain sketch, sloppy guitar parts but punching in for guitar (and other instruments) in the studio setting is about as accepted a practice as there is and it takes nothing from the artist in terms of composition and when the time comes for live performance, is typically a non issue as the parts are exercised, learned and all good. is it an issue when someone records guitar parts that are insanely complex and then live, can't play past a bar because they are exposed for being a bum? sure, i can see how that is a problem but if that is your problem then you have more pressing issues than whether or not you should be punching in. no need to question the studio practice. it is entirely routine, common place and nonindicative of your chops or composition skills. (lesson here: don't be a zyko and arrogantly insist on every take being a live, full take or you will always sound like a bum. unless of course you're god. then by all means, be a pretentious guitar playist and all that)

this is the freshest new artist with completely new original material i've encountered since April 1st 2006 WORD

luigi's mansion and drugs

and honestly i'm pretty sure i'd stare dumbly at your project files unable to decipher what i'm looking at

here's another reason why "no" i don't want to they're my secret processes and i'm not sharing them with the world lol

nice mass gain in five months and yes your wings look to have gained the most ! good shit!

this thread rocks my tits.

All four! It's a great way to get back into the straight deadlifts program I'd like to eventually get back to after a couple mesocycles of the 5/3/1. so far so good! that fucking sounds delicious lol i had also temporarily given up pizza (much to the chagrin of the many fans of my pizzamaking skillz) but i'm gonna give this recipe a twirl - good shit

lol this thread confuses me

https://soundcloud.com/waleed-hawatky/rime-of-the-wandering-seafarer Ocremix's very own 'Rime of the Wandering Seafarer' live! IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE!

after a couple weeks doin light work and cardio to get the ol machine de-rusted and oily, i finally feel my body responding to my commands like a good body ought to. so i'm starting my 5/3/1 powerlift routine today and i'm GEEKED!! it begins....

go "get" it, friends! zykO live, raw and direct into your brain cells n shiet