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Hey all! I just finished a Final Fantasy XV I made in a trailer-ish orchestral style with FL Studio. Do you think this could work for OCR? Or is it too similar to the original?? Also, would love to hear what you guys think are the things I could've done better, if you have the time for some open feedback/criticism! Link to the remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUPrIpSGsgc Link to the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgCJel3WLkg

Hi so this is my first post here, I had wanted to submit to here for years but was way too intimidated before. Not entirely sure how to open this up really bug I do have a track that I'd love some feedback on that I was considering submitting - hopefully I didn't mess up anything in this since it's been ages since I've used a proper forum. So in the hype for the newest pokemon games this was made for a remix compilation that considering I haven't heard anything back from the person organizing it in like 2 months now, I'm pretty sure has fallen through - that being said, I really enjoy how it turned out and figured it would be good to try and take it elsewhere. I had been on a big eurobeat kick lately and considering I don't have Sun yet I revisited Black again and found I really liked the emotion piano thing and ended up wanting to turn it into a dance track. The final result ended up being a 6 minute long piece that starts out quiet and orchestral before building into something I'm guessing falls close to Happy Hardcore. Generally I'd say I'm way more confident with electronic textures than live instrument stuff so hopefully the production doesn't feel too lopsided in that regard. It's done in that I was satisfied when I originally submitted it for the compilation, but if anyone has any suggestions on it I'm fine taking them https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31297091/Music Stuff/finalized shared/Pokemon Black and White - Unwavering Emotions [Unfaltering Truth Mix] - 320.mp3 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31297091/Music Stuff/finalized shared/Pokemon Black and White - Unwavering Emotions [Unfaltering Truth Mix] - 192 kbps.mp3 Also I'm not exactly the best with naming things, if anyone has any ideas I'm more than open to them.

Hey everyone, So, the idea for this track was birthed out of the most recent MnP Competition. I've been playing around with this for close to two weeks. After getting the song into a more stable place I feel comfortable getting this evaluated and seeing how close or far away I am from the threshold of OCR's standards for submission. I feel this is an improvement from my last remix and would like to try and submit this song to the site, if it's not too far off from the standards. This is like some weird combo between synth wave and standard electronic fare. The idea was to mimic the concept in my head of being on an alien train going between different stations, in this case Brinstar and Torvus. While I know what the concept is, that does not ring true for everyone else and may just come across as disjointed or incohesive, so I want to make sure this isn't going to be a problem for the judges. I'm also worried the lead may be too powerful. Tested my song on a couple different speakers and it sounded a little iffy on one but fine on the other. Even if you are not an evaluator I welcome any and all feedback, or just general comments. Thanks!

Remix of the Final Fantasy Prelude/Prologue themes https://www.dropbox.com/s/rykh8wk0o3dj4ww/Hydaelyn.mp3?dl=0 Prelude Prologue

A few months ago, I've made a Ice Cap Zone remix from Sonic The Hedgehog 3, and I've posted that remix here, but... THERE ARE A LOT OF ERRORS ON THAT REMIX!!! So, I've created a new mix and this is so much better, I've learned a loooooot of things in this time Enjoy Original track:

HI FRIENDS!! I attempted an electronic upbeat remix of Xenogears - Singing of the Gentle Wind. While the original is a peaceful serenade, I chose to give it life (and drums, for that matter). My main approach was to stay true to the main theme, while adding a couple original sections and straying from the chord progression at points with some dissonance. Looking for a mod evaluation overall, but specifically can hope you can help me improve the following: Balance of instruments Panning More/less SFX Making the song more exciting Thanks so much and any feedback is appreciated! Context: If you're a Xenogears fan, the original track is the main theme of Nisan. My remix: Original Track:

Hi, I've been working on a remix of Ruthless from Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, planning to submit it to the judges, but I figured I should post it here for feedback too (I'm first-timer at OCR so I haven't really gotten into the swing of things). Feedback arrangement and mix-wise is great, and I'm pretty stumped when it comes to a title so suggestions would be appreciated! UPDATED: OLD:

I've been playing Pokemon Red again, since it was rereleased for the virtual console for the 20th anniversary. The Pokemon soundtrack has always been one of my favourites, but as I was replaying it, I thought, "wouldn't this music sound great being played by a string group." I decided to give arranging the Celadon City theme for strings a go. This is just a sample extract of the main A section of the piece, but I feel like I should let other people hear it before I do too much work on it, in case it turns out to be a waste of time. Let me know what you think https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5lS6lBc6h18a2MtQUE0MFBsZDg/view?usp=sharing

7 string metal remix of Adventure Awry from the Pony Island OST, originally written by Jonah Senzel. Pony Island is an interesting, clever game that you should check out and that is also entirely unrelated to other pony-containing franchises (just in case you were wondering, because I was). Download provides 320 kbps audio to avoid nasty Soundcloud compression ruining your life. All Feedback is greatly appreciated! See below for my own thoughts. Source track: https://soundcloud.com/jonah-senzel/06-adventure-awry Some of my thoughts going into and coming out of this mix: For better or worse, I didn't stray too far from the original source. I "transposed" it from D to A by which I mean my 7 string guitar is in drop A and I hit the open string really hard a lot of times (so sofisticated!). Also added an interlude that the main riff inspired me to and played around with the songs structure a bit, as well as with some weird glitchy effects. My aim with this one was to create a mix in the style of Keith Merrow (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A2TeB9zikA) in terms of guitar tone and overall timbre. I admire his work greatly and I think his mixes are unique to say the least. I love to learn about artists by trying to emulate their style, and so far I've learned some interesting new tricks every time I tried that. As usual, my biggest bugbear was the guitar tone. I recently upgraded to BIAS desktop and used the "Haunted S'mores" amp modell by Marc Holcomb (Periphery, Haunted Shores) for this project as it lends itself to a modern, mid-focussed guitar tone. However, during this mix I discovered by comparing my raw DI tracks to raws from Ola Englund's "Synder" album (he provides all raws and stems for his albums online for a few extra bucks, a great way to learn!) that my biggest issue is in the guitar itself (ESP LTD MH-417). It has both an outrageous overambundance of low mids and to top that off, there are three domniant resonant frequencies at 330, 440 (root note obvsl.) and 685 Hz that will make the guitar super honky when left in (which I decided to do in case of 330 and 440) or absolutely unintelligible / muffled when notched out even just a bit. For the longest time I thought my 7 string sounded that bad in mixes because the software amps I was using were just plain shit, but as it turns out, the problem seems to be inherent to the instrument. That's a real bummer for me - I'm thinking about changing the pick-ups from EMG 707's (known to be a honk-fest!) to something more round sounding, but I'm still shying away from it so far as I don't know for sure that this will fix the problem. Just hammers home ye old "garbage in, garbage out" rule ... I think I managed to get the best-sounding drums and bass going that I've ever had. Bass sits nicely in its pocket and doesn't cloud neither bass drum nor low mids; drums would sound absolutely huge if I didn't have to shrink them a bit to let the guitars have their honk-apocalypse in the low mids =/ All in all I think my EQing is definitely getting better and I'm starting to use saturation to greater effect, meaning that this mix is far less digital sounding than my last efforts. Sometimes you just gotta distort stuff to make it feel more organic! I went all out on volume automation on this one. I don't think it's perfect and I'm still having a hard time actually stepping back from the mix and listening to "the song" as is to find what needs to be featured / phased back at any moment. But I'm aware of - and working on - it. Having bought studio-grade monitors (Yamaha HS7) definitely helps with judging space which I found almost undoable back when mixing on headphones. Btw. if you have tips to share regarding home-made accoustic treatment, I'd be glad to be at the receiving end of them! Judging by the discussions and posts I read so far, some of you will disagree with my choice of mastering, which turned out to be around -7 LUFS. If it doesn't affect the mixes eligibility to be on OCR too much (which I'm sure you will tell me), I would kindly ask you to glance over this fact. As I said, I tried to emulate Keith Merrow's mixes which are super hot (-5 to -6 LUFS) and since it is my secret hope to make music at least a part time profession one day, I want to learn how to get a master to that volume. I don't feel like commenting on whether I like this or not, as my opinion is frankly irrelevant, but fact is that loudness is still part of the reality in audio production. I will say however that in the case of a metal track with overdriven (and therefore fairly compressed) guitars, super tightly compressed bass and sampled drums, there's obviously less dynamic range to lose than in, you know, an orchestral piece. I would greatly appreciate any feedback on my mixing; I am willing to learn and objective opinions from people in the field are hard to find. I know metal is not a focus around these parts, but I'm hoping that one or two of you will have something to say to this. This is the fourth mix I post here but the first which I put up for debate to enter OCR's catalogue - and I gotta be honest, it's mainly to provoke feedback and not because I'm more confident in this one than in the others (okay yeah I am, it's an objective technical improvement without doubt, but you know what I mean). Cheers!

UPDATED 23/02: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93823550/Papyrus_8.mp3 This is completely done now, I would love a Re-eval before submitting it! Sources: Description: So I had this idea while listening to something completely unrelated and this came out hahah What do you think about it?

Hey there! First time posting to the WIP forum, but I finally have a remix I feel would be up to par for OCR standards. This one is from my third time entering Dwelling of Duels, and I managed to snag third place during MAGFest/Collaboration month. For collaborators, I recruited old bandmates and friends of mine from the thrash metal scene. These include bassist Mike Dreher from my old band Condition Critical, Tony Barhoum from the same band to do two guest guitar solos, and drummer Brian Westbrook from Lich King who also helped with production. I did all of the arrangement and all of the guitar playing except for Tony's two solos (we both had two guitar solos in this remix though). Here's the source Here's the song uploaded to the Dwelling of Duels YouTube page Here is a direct link to download a WAV file of it from our Google drive folder Here it is on my Soundcloud Source breakdown if you want it: 0:00 - 0:21 This is a reference to both the original Veldt theme and the intro to an Artillery song which the name of this remix came from. We tried to make the drums a mix between the Veldt drums and the drums from that song. The guitar riff has the same rhythm as the Artillery song, but with the notes from the first section of the source tune. 0:22 - 0:44 Original riff that I wrote to go under the lead coming up. 0:45 - 1:05 Lead guitar with the main melody from Wild West (the source tune). 1:06 - 1:27 The next section from Wild West played as a thrash riff with lots of triplets. The lead coming in after the first break is the melody from the section of Wild West that the rhythm guitar is referencing. 1:29 - 1:39 Guitar solo by me. The rhythm guitar under the solo is the bassline from the last section of the source loop. 1:40 - 1:50 This is a thrash rendition of the same section of the source that the rhythm guitar during the solo was playing. 1:51 - 2:08 Guitar solo by Tony Barhoum over a clean guitar section that is a direct reference to an Artillery song. 2:09 - 2:32 Guitar solo by me over an original riff. These two solo sections are the only parts of the song that have no references to the source. 2:33 - 2:53 Thrash riff directly based off of the source tune. If you couldn't tell from the rhythm guitar, the lead comes in halfway through this section making it more obvious. 2:54 - 3:14 Thrash riff also referencing the same section of the source. This one is a little more liberal/obscure because it was originally supposed to be another guitar solo from someone who did not have enough time to record their parts before the DoD submission deadline. If there is anything I am specifically asking for suggestions on, it is whether or not to just take this section out entirely, record another solo over it, or just leave it be. 3:15 - 3:49 Breakdown riff directly from the source. 3:50 - 4:00 Drums directly from the intro of the source tune. Mike also decided to lay down a little mini bass solo over this section, which I didn't originally plan on but think it sounds rad. 4:01 - 4:43 The rhythm guitar plays the main melody from the source tune, and halfway through this section Tony Barhoum goes into another guitar solo. 4:44 - 4:56 Short ending riff not from the source. Sorry for the long post, but hopefully the breakdown was helpful The arrangement is pretty liberal, but after going through the breakdown I'm certain that it passes the 50/50 guideline because just about every section contains a reference to the source, if not is directly from the source. The sections I would think could be left out would be the intro (since the source reference is admittedly pretty obscure), the second guitar solo over the clean section, the third guitar solo, the section I mentioned that I would consider taking out, and the ending. These together add up to 1:56 worth of non source out of 4:56 worth of total music. That means it's about 60% source, and that is me being harsh and not counting two sections that do have references to the source. Unless I am an idiot and miscounted. Thanks a bunch for any feedback you're willing to give on this!