OCR04398 - *YES* Xenogears, NiGHTS into dreams... & Tales of Innocence "Semper Saltare"

[Rexy]

OceansAndrew, Level99, Overclocked University

xenogears - singing of the gentle wind

 

nights into dreams - suburban museum

 

tales of innocence - snow outside the window

 

This is Stevo and I taking all our favorite songs and putting them together in a single ReMix. Semper Saltare is probably my favorite arrangement we've done together, where it captures so much of both of our outlooks on music, and our personal touches are everywhere. Like the best collaborations, ends up being something more than either of us could do on our own.

 

I've listened to this song hundreds of times myself, and it never fails to make me feel grateful for not only my friendship with Stevo, but also for OCR itself, and how it was able to bring me into a great community of friends. 

 

Thanks everyone, here's to 20 more years of music!

[prophetik music]

some really stellar originals here. also the track clips a bit, a little more than a db, but it's not audible as far as i could see.

there's a ton of great stuff here. there's lots of shifts of style so it doesn't feel the same for six minutes, there's lots of use of acoustic and electric guitar alternately, there's some double time stuff, there's lots of interesting backgrounds in the synths behind the (featured) guitars, and there's no really awkward transitions where something just feels weird. there's scads of arranged melodic content, so nothing to worry about there either.

the drums are a touch loud (which is a stylistic consideration for the DJ set idea, vs a standalone track, so i get that). in the first few minutes i also felt that the lead guitars were a touch loud as well, and the ending's guitar delays sound a bit weird. but the whole thing sounds so clean that i can't really complain - it's all very intentionally handled and it sounds great. easy yes by me.

 

 

YES

 

[djpretzel]

First off, definitely a YES for me and a fun, uplifting, power-melody power-medley, with strong production and crunchy guitar harmonies aplenty. I think @prophetik music's right about the drums being a little loud, but they also ended up feeling a little samey to me around the four-minute marker - not the programming, the sounds. When that snare is hitting at the same velocity, with the same impact, over & over, it ends up having more of an EDM vibe, but in this context & with these melodically distinct sections, it did start bugging me. I guess the other thing would just be: OMG melodic overload You know me, I love me the melody part, but... this is almost non-stop melodic content, for 5+ minutes. Even my copious appetite for melodic riffage was feeling a little stuffed/sated towards the end - would have benefited from a sparse oasis or hell, a few more bars of progression MINUS melody. I don't find myself advising "filler" often - it's usually the opposite, actually - but in this case I would have varied the level of emphasis on lead melody a bit more. Not a huge deal, but worth mentioning.

YES

[MindWanderer]

This certainly put a smile on my face.  So much energy!  It starts off like a cinematic rock ballad but goes into some lovely 80's 

Unlike with proph's, I can hear the clipping periodically on my setup.  It's really noticeable on the big crashes at 3:07 and 4:48, barely noticeable on some of the other peaks.  A tiny bit of crackle on the loudest guitar sections.

As for the snares, yeah, they do get old at times.  As a percentage of the whole thing, they don't stay on the same pace for all that much of it at a time, but it's a 6-minute track and they do maintain a pattern for a minute at a time.  And also yes, a bit of breathing room might have been nice.

Really enjoyable stuff all around.  Those clips do bug me, though.

YES/CONDITIONAL (on fixing at least the most severe clips)

[Emunator]

Triumphant, euphoric, and unapologetically upbeat, just as I've come to expect from the artists involved! The combination of sources was adapted flawlessly to the genre, and although it's been correctly pointed out that this is essentially 6+ minutes of non-stop melodies, there's still enough strategically-placed slowdowns to give the listener a moment to catch their breath. I've got to give a special shoutout to the Suburban Museum cameo at 4:10... what an absolute banger of a breakdown to shake things up before you drive it home with the final build and chorus. From an arrangement and performance standpoint, I truly believe this is some of your finest work to date, gents!

From a mixing standpoint, this is pretty hot in the mids/highs - I am not catching any full-blown clipping that MindWanderer is pointing out, but you are definitely making that limiter work. Those transitions get crunchy and painful on the ears, but they're sporadic enough that I won't go conditional on it. Also agreed that the drum mix is a bit too loud across the board. Nothing that sinks the final track by any means, but I am hearing some of what the other judges are pointing out. 

YES

[Liontamer]

For the negatives first, I could have definitely done with some more variety on the core beat; regardless, it did have some good heft and energy to it, so it's not like it was a mixed bag, but some variations or more audible fills would have been nice. The key change at 5:31 wasn't bad but also felt unnecessary. That said, pretty seamless and spirited treatments of these themes, and the levels didn't bother me in any way. Love it, bros, good to go!

YES