*NO* Chrono Cross 'Whithering Away'

[Gario]

Hello, 

 

I am submitting my piece, Withering Away, a take on Chrono Cross - Departed Souls.

 

My OC ReMix profile is: 

http://ocremix.org/community/profile/35128-arman/

 

My piece is hosted on SoundCloud:

 

 

I appreciate your time and consideration,

Arman Aziz

 

Edited May 22 by Liontamer
closed decision

[MindWanderer]

This is an extremely conservative arrangement.  It's mostly a re-instrumentation, with some minor re-arrangement that requires some effort to detect.  It's a thorough re-instrumentation, done very well for the most part (although I object to the extremely fake electric guitars), but it's not much more than a cover.  It's also pretty repetitive: 3:24-4:20 is identical to 1:55-2:51 except that the string pad is swapped for a vox pad, and the harp is swapped for rhythm guitar.

The production is mostly fine, except for that guitar, but mostly I don't this is transformative enough for OCR.

NO

[Liontamer]

Way too conservative to start; this was just a reinstrumentation, albeit a pleasant one. The acoustic guitar sample at :27 won't fool anyone due to being in the uncanny valley with its timing, but the tone is great; once you added in other parts, the guitar sample was less exposed.

Just before the 2-minute mark, we get into something more interpretive just by the addition of the drumwork as well as the bassline. For the bassline though, it was well-written (taken from the source, of course), but way too quiet; it barely registered as a indistinct buzz. It's a subtle part in the source tune, but too subtle in your version; make it stand out some more, but also get interpretive/creative with the part-writing there to help personalize your approach more.

At 1:54, I see what MindWanderer's saying about the electric guitar sample, but the tone of it was unique enough IMO that it didn't have to sound like a traditional electric guitar; that said, it could have been mixed in louder to have more presence.

3:25's chorus did have an additional line added in and some subtle drum variation later on at 3:51, but was essentially a cut-and-paste, so that was a drag, and the arrangement felt underdeveloped overall despite going in the right direction for the last 3 minutes.

I agreed with MW that this arrangement was too conservative. That said, you could lop off most of the first 2 minutes and not lose anything. If you have the remaining 3 minutes, but also continue adding/swapping in other different instruments, and adding in more of your own original writing ideas, this is relatively conservative, but maybe 70% of the way there in terms of making it. There's a lot to like here, Arman, and you have a good base here. Please consider resubmitting this.

NO (resubmit)

[Sir_NutS]

I see the other judges have expanded on the issues with this mix so I'll keep it short: I mostly agree that the arrangement lacks interpretation.  I liked the textures and the mix balance was ok.  Even the fake electric guitar was Ok for me, as it was played in relatively full sections and that prevented its fakeness from getting too exposed.  I think removing one of the verbatim sections and adding your own, or even replacing lead sections like 3:25 with your own solo would bring this closer to a pass.

I can almost see this on the front page, give it an extra push by going beyond the adaptation.

NO (resubmit)