*NO* Sonic the Hedgehog 'Green Hill Zone (House Jazz Mix)'

[Palpable]

Composed by Masato Nakamura

Remixer Name: Deandre Pope

Real Name: Deandre Pope

I just go by my real name

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Lots of ideas in this Joshua Morse-esque smooth house mix. New chords, funky bassline, and a few new sections. There's a bit of repetition and the sax sample isn't the best, but I was digging what was going on. Call it groove bias, but yeah I think I can pass it.

YES

Edit: After listening to this one a few more times and reading the other votes, I think I have to agree that the repetition becomes a little much. I really dig the groove you've got going and with some minor change-ups here and there, I'd have no problem switching back to a YES. Hope you make those changes!

NO (resubmit)

Edited December 15, 2013 by Liontamer
closed decision

[DragonAvenger]

While I'm not quite as on board as Vinnie is with this, I do think it's still pretty close to passing. The style change is pretty fun, and I think the quality of the sax is actually charming in its own way. The big problem I'm hearing right now is that there's a lot of clipping on the attacks of the background chords in some of the busier sections, and it's something that absolutely needs to be fixed.

I'd definitely like to hear more in terms of dynamics and build throughout the song, and a change-up in the soundscape would provide a good change of pace to keep the variation fresh. Otherwise this is a pretty fun groove.

NO (resbumit)

Edited October 5, 2013 by DragonAvenger

[Liontamer]

The piano was drowned out from :15-:27, though it was a pretty flimsy sounding sample. DarkeSax at :30 sounds decent. The bass was thumpin' and that's important, but the soundscape sounded even more cluttered and imbalanced at :45 when the sustained strings came in. They also sounded thin and flimsy. The imbalance wasn't the hugest deal, but Deia has a point that the backing e-piano chords sounded like they're distorting a little during the fullest sections.

In a pretty early disappointment, :30's section was repeated again via copy-pasta at 1:15. 1:30's writing is exactly the same as :45. :'-( 1:45 provided the only variation by dropping the sax.

Onto to some wholly original comping on top of the core beats. The theme returned at 2:30 with the very beginning of the source being used; good stuff there. Again, the beats were a lot louder than the source, but we'll live.

Back to the copy-pasta treatment of the melody of the third time at 3:00. The only real variation between 1:00, 1:45 & 3:30 was changing or dropping a supporting instrument for 15 seconds apiece. It's definitely a bit much to repeat stuff near-wholesale like that without more substantial variations.

The backing instrumentation was cool, but the sax arrangement of the source melody was arguably too straightforward & paint-by-numbers and didn't get the job done, especially given the sheer repetition without some more pronounced differences on the table. I like most of the interpretation ideas here, and it's got potential, but the current bar's higher than this these days.

Less copy/pasta-ing of nearly half the length of the arrangement; develop those verses further for the second and third iterations for the win. Great start though, Deandre, this kind of arrangement approach is up our alley, let's just not get too repetitive over the long haul on it.

NO (resubmit)

Edited October 9, 2013 by Liontamer

[OceansAndrew]

To add, I think the arrangement is solid, but the sounds are really muddy, i'm hearing a touch of clipping in the rhodes, and Some of the samples could be upgraded a bit. I do think things got pretty repetitive, and I generally agree with most of what Larry is saying.

Fix it up and send it back!

No, please resubmit

[Vig]

I swear one of my biggest pet peeves regardless of genre is a chordal instrument that plays one whole-note chord per bar. It's so boring.

The fusion idea is interesting. The groove works, as does the bass. But you've got to fix that ELP like, a lot. They don't call it the rhythm section for nothing.

Mixing: Lots of distortion, and if you're going for any kind of house feel, you need to sidechain some stuff.

NO

[Flexstyle]

So, there are a few things that I want to point out with this one.

First, the mix is a bit on the muddy side. That’s a fairly easy fix, though, as you should only need to sort out how the bass and the kick relate to each other, then adjust the balance of everything else. What I mean by that is that you gotta decide which one's going to be the very sub-bass frequency carrier, and which one's going to be a bit above it in the spectrum, and then EQ to taste.

I gotta second Vig--the mix does have some distortion at times, and I'm thinking it could be because you're crowding your limiter with mid-range frequencies--or you're just not using a limiter at all. That could be helped if you take some of the harsher mids out of the Rhodes, I think, but careful how you go about it.

Other mixing stuff: the chippy blips sounded decent, albeit just a bit piercing for the rest of the song's vibe (maybe roll off the high end a bit? not a huge deal, though) but the sax sounded buried and a bit too low in the mix.

Speaking of the sax, it also sounded pretty artificial. There’s definitely a place for the sample you used, but you’d be helped by pitchbending some of those grace notes in there, rather than allowing the attack to hit each time, as that makes it sound noticeably unnatural.

Finally, my biggest issue with this track is that I can skip around and hear basically the same thing each time. There’s almost zero variation between each time the main melody is playing: it’s the same lead instrument, the same bassline, the same basic beat, and this happens multiple times throughout the track. Gotta keep it interesting, yo! I’d advise that you shorten the song a bit, and focus on making each section stand out. It’s fine to revisit an idea, but give it some variation the second and third times around. Do some noodling on the melody, or at least introduce some extra percussive elements or something.

Also, do keep in mind that you’ll want to pick out a new name for the track. OCR’s submission rules state that submissions can’t be named after the source track, game title, or yourself. If you’re having trouble thinking of a good title, just post around in the Workshop—I’m sure someone there would be happy to throw some words around for you.

In summary:

1. "Naturalize" the saxophone with some pitchbending.

2. Clean up the distortion.

3. Add some extra variation as the song progresses.

With those three big issues, you'll be in good shape--plus, if you take on some of the smaller stuff, I think this could be a fantastic, deep-jazz-house track for OCR's front page!

NO (Resubmit)

[Chimpazilla]

House Jazz indeed! Nice solid kick right off the bat, sweet little panning sine arp, funky bass and a nice jazzy brass lead! But man, those backing key chords (Rhodes organ?) starting at 0:15 are soooooo loud, they are dominating the entire mix and really creating some mud. That timbre needs to be scaled back massively in volume, and needs eq treatment to fit into the mix. It also doesn’t help that the keys are nearly always hammering away on the exact same two chords.

This arrangement starts out strong, but quickly becomes dealbreakingly repetitive. The same verse and chorus appear, verbatim, three times. You would definitely need to do something different for two of those three identical verse/chorus iterations, either in writing or instrumentation or both. Some additional percussion loops and/or altered drum patterns would also help with repetitiveness.

This track is very groovy and has tons of potential. Tame that Rhodes organ in the lows and low-mids, do some writing/instrumentation variation, and I'd love to give this another listen.

NO (resubmit)