Emunator

These are just going to be first impressions from voting, so take this all with a huge grain of salt! The City Is a Warm, Dead Waste: I love the variety here! It reminds me of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin in some ways, it doesn't surprise me to see a few Team Whip alumni on this one! Guitars are kickass here, and there's a monster amount of synth variety too. There's a solid amount of cohesion with the sounds chosen here, though I'm somewhat less sold on the arrangement itself - lots of great ideas but I think it'll take me some time to grasp where the arrangement is actually taking me. I think there's some reverb fine-tuning to do here, a lot of the elements feel overly boomy, which takes away some of the bite from elements like the drums. Other than drums/guitar, I actually surprisingly can't pinpoint individual elements contributed by each artist - there's a lot of sounds that feel like they could have come from anyone, which is pretty neat! 🏆Duel of the Shifting Sands: Ooohhh, 8-bit plus! I'm not surprised at all by that, but I'm not used to hearing it with all the extra bits and bobs, and I gotta say... I dig it! A lot. I think there's untapped potential to process the chiptune elements a little more dynamically, but overall, the blend works pretty damn well. 3:02, hell yeah! This is a great way to drive this home. I was on the fence about which track would get my vote, but this section really clinched it for me. Overall, I saw a huge amount of potential and TONS of great ideas thrown out from both entries in this duel, but this track feels like like it has the edge in terms of focus and cohesion. 🏆Seven Fists Under the Sakura Tree: Motherfucker, you guys are not playing around. This hits IMMEDIATELY off the rip. That fill at 1:06, excuuuuse me? I think this has a bit of the same "washiness" that I noted in "Warm, Dead Waste" where there's just a little bit less clarity to the mix than I would like, but I don't think the track suffers too much as a result. Ok, and now we go into something completely different at the end that somehow also works? I was trying to write out my highlights as I went along, and I just couldn't keep up. The sound choices, writing, production... y'all are crazy for this one. This is going directly onto my Smash Bros. playlist. This is going to be hard to beat. Sakura Wa Karenai: Ok, so that's how you're gonna play this. The production on here is IMMACULATE right off the jump, I can hear some strong DJ Mokram influence on the world instruments, then some psytrance beats come in and I immediately know who's at the helm. The production on here feels a little tighter, but I'm waiting for the moments like Team Rage had in their entry that REALLY knocked me off my feet. Oh, there's 2:06 - that's more like what I'm talking about, but it still feels like you're holding back on the energy levels. We've still got time to go though, so we'll see where this goes. 2:42 really jumped out at me in a completely different way, but it was a powerful moment with the entrance of vocals and that beautiful FM piano. The sound design in this section is off the hook. OH BABY SHUFFLE RHYTHMS now we're cooking. Ahhh, this matchup is TOUGH. There's so many brilliant ideas here and there's actually quite a bit of connective tissue to bridge them all together, but will say that the energy management falls just a little short of my hopes. The mix is incredibly clean, from the instrumentation to the mixing/mastering, but it feels like there was room to push the intensity further. I still loved this a ton, and you gave the other track a serious run for their money, but Seven Fists takes the crown in this matchup for me. 🏆Only Trust Your Mix, Techniques Will Never Help You: this title sounds like something I would hear in an incomprehensible Youtube Short production tutorial, I'm curious what the title alludes to! This starts off with some pretty straightforward but catchy, bright rock that reminds me of old Sonic Adventure music, the lead performances are top-notch. I don't feel like this track was as ambitious as the other ones from Team Rage in terms of ideas, but it feels like perhaps the most cohesively-executed of the three, and just because it's more focused, doesn't mean that it's any less impactful. The seagulls are a nice touch too, reminds me even more of Sonic Adventure when we hit that part. Crazy breakdown at the end, this was really good! You Make the Sun Shine (In My Heart): Aww, so cute! This is definitely the hardest matchup so far just by virtue of the fact that each entry were clearly going for different things. The other two matchups, although executed very differently, ended up going for relatively similar energy, but this is the kind of diametrically-opposed matchup I love to see from GSM. The lead vocals are confident and fit the bill really nicely - some slightly awkward moments where the lyrics and the melodic phrasing don't perfectly sync up, but that's to be expected on a short timeline when you have to add your own lyrics to the equation. Across the board, I'm hearing brilliant synth riffs and excellent sound choices. I love the vocal harmonies that I assume colorado weeks contributed? 3:25 onward to the end of the song is when everything really clicked for me <3 The area where this struggles for me is the mixdown - it doesn't feel like it's quite baked yet, specifically in terms of relative volume levels. The lead doesn't always feel like the lead, and there's certain elements (like the synth bass at 2:40-ish, for example) that feel inexplicably louder than everything else. There's also several elements that don't quite feel glued together with appropriate level of bus compression or reverb to really give this a sense of place. When both tracks are full of great ideas but in totally different ways, I need to fall back to execution, and in this case, I have to trust the mix from Team Rage. There's no dead air this round, every team brought the heat in terms of concepts and energy! Execution was a little more of a mixed bag, ultimately I feel like any of these matchups could have been swayed with different levels of polish on the execution, which means that you all hit the mark in terms of blending the sources well. I am well familiar with the time crunch element of GSM, and it does tend to play out tougher for more ambitious, multi-genre concepts that will always take longer to polish. Even though I ended up generally voting for the tracks that felt tighter and maybe took a few less stylistic risks, it's not for lack of enjoyment of the more ambitious ones! If you didn't get my vote here, it just means that I thought the song needed a little more time in the oven - everyone did excellent work and I enjoyed it a lot!

I vaguely recall hearing the first version from Dwelling of Duels but didn't listen with the most critical of ears. I'm approaching this resubmitted version with fresh ears. I love anything from the original Mario Party soundtrack, and you captured and enhanced the vibe really well! The mix definitely feels rough around the edges in its current form, which I think stems from multiple different issues. From the jump, the balance between percussion feels off, and this feeling persists through the rest of the song. The hi-hats, and later the shakers, along with the hand percussion (bongos? congas?) feel substantially louder in the mix than everything else, and they don't feel like they exist in a shared space with the kit drums. I can appreciate that this may be a stylistic decision to an extent when considering things like reverb levels and tone, but the volume balance feels off at a base level and that feels distracting. The percussion and performance, however, is great - I don't think there's any problems here that can't be fixed with some re-balancing. This is harder to articulate without seeing the project file, but I feel like the kick and bass are crunching a little too hard together. This might be a combination of overcompression or sub-optimal attack settings on the compressors, too much saturation on the kick/bass, or timing issues where the kick and bass are too synced up on the transients and are causing spikes when both play at the same time. As a nitpick, 1:58 feels like we get a brief moment where the kick and bass stumble and have a sloppy rhythm, but it bounces back quickly. I love the guitar tone and performance here, it adds a ton of life and movement to the piece that I think is essential to keeping a song at this tempo from feeling plodding. The marimba also contributes to this positively when it appears, with the lone exception of 2:35, which just doesn't work well as such an exposed lead instrument from a writing level. Unfortunately, the electric piano in the intro and later at 1:53 is underwhelming - it feels notably programmed and stiff compared to the other instruments around it and is also extremely quiet in the mix. This unfortunately does not start the track with a positive impression and feels like a weak link overall. I'm not totally sold on the execution here, though the concept is surely one that is well-suited for OCR. If this doesn't pass in its current form, I'm 100% certain you can get it there - at the very least, tightening up the balance on the percussive elements and cleaning up the e. piano would be enough to push this over the bar for me, but I think there's other things you can do to bring out even more of the potential here. NO (resubmit)

This one starts off with some classic Omnisphere bells and synths that gel together flawlessly. Everything is buttery smooth about the pads, bass, and melodic elements. I can see how each of the decisions you made in the reworking process contribute to this feeling. Then, around the 1 minute mark, you slide in some incredibly fun shuffle rhythms that feels completely different from the intro, but goes down smooth all the same. No chaser needed :) The only beef I have here is the piercing high-end percussion lines, I'd love to hear that (or, not hear that?) tamped down with some high-shelf action. I also would have liked to hear a little more sound design/effects to lead into the final resolution at the end of the song, but it already works well enough as-is, so that's more of a "I would have done this differently" approach. Nice work! YES

Yerp - pretty much what my two esteemed colleagues above said. It's a wonderful concept and I have no argument that you didn't achieve exactly what you set out to do with this track. It's a brilliant demonstration of the concept of phasing and it works perfectly with this source material, but from a sound design and arrangement development perspective, this is too abstract for our catalog. I could see this concept laying the melodic groundwork for a remix that IS viable here. If you were game for that, it would be sublime - I'm sure of it. If not, this piece already does exactly what it needs to do, it would just need some sonic expansion beyond what's presented here. NO

Huh, I thought that I voted on this when it was on the panel. I definitely listened to it many times, and really enjoyed its simplicity. It leans into all the elements that I enjoy most about your music, and the extra context from the writeup makes it feel all the more special. Lovely work!

This is not at ALL what I was expecting after what I've heard from your other submissions - I'm impressed to hear you step out of your comfort zone like this and execute so well on the first pass. Overall, this was a solid effort and I can see why this has split the panel. This starts off with some very immersive orchestral string swells and a well-used vocal sample to draw the listener in. No issues so far, this sounds great. To touch briefly on the arrangement, I think jnWake correctly identified that it's close to the source, though I don't think I would have immediately noticed that myself because of how much you transformed the original through different instrumentation and flourishes. I think this is a definite pass on the arrangement front. The elephant in the room is the flute - sampling yourself into a virtual instrument is a bold choice, and although it certainly lends this piece a certain "vintage rompler" quality (I've affectionately referred to this as "Playstation 1 orchestra" in the past) there's an uncanny valley feeling that we're left with that unfortunately takes me out of the experience. It's not quite synthetic enough to feel intentional, but not hitting the mark for realism on the faster runs and embellishments, or the vibrato, to pass as realistic. I could forgive the vibrato, but honestly, the grace notes sound really awkward and immersion-breaking. Would it be within your capability to record those runs directly from your flute so it captures the natural legato between notes that help blend those effects more smoothly? I think even if you went for the sampled approach for the lead instruments, patching those runs in with a live-performed sample would be a huge improvement. The mixing is also a concern - there's no MAJOR missteps, but there's some consistent volume imbalances that, if dialed in by a decibel or two, would blend the piece a lot better. The flute is loud, and I think there's probably some of the saturation automation you mentioned that's causing the flute to crunch even harder. The end result is that the flute feels abrasive in the mix when it should be feeling more smooth, so I would ease up on that effect slightly. Other than that, I agree with the balance suggestions jnWake called out. This is really close, but because the flute takes such a central role in the piece, the rest of the track would need to be really ironclad to make me willing to forgive the issues present with the flute, and it's unfortunately not tight enough to tip the scales for me. Really cool approach though, and it was great to hear you try something so different from your usual fare! NO (borderline/resubmit)

Proph has the right call on this based on our source usage guidelines, but this was wickedly enjoyable. "Yami Yugi, big piece up on the neck" killed me, love that that line made it into the chorus so I got to hear it multiple times 🤣Great delivery, great lyricism, excellent sample flip and production on the beat. Because the source usage is based entirely around direct samples from the source and isn't terribly recognizable as a Wario Ware arrangement in this form, this isn't the kind of submission we're looking for. It's a shame because I thoroughly loved listening to this, and Brad is right - if not on OCR, this will find a home elsewhere online and people will love it. If you guys are able to put together something that doesn't rely on direct sampled audio from the original game and has more substantive development on the instrumental side, I'd personally love to hear it. NO

This is a no-brainer closeout. This source material adapts PERFECTLY to this small ensemble format, which allows both the rhythmic and melodic elements of Hollow Bastion to shine equally. The performances are tight, the mixing gives it a lush sense of space while still retaining a feeling of intimacy. I'm not as picky of a listener as Brad is, so if the technical performance aspects pass his bar, it solidly leaps over my layman's expectations as well! YES

"I've heard plenty of tracks where the metronome-like timing is a feature not a bug, and this isn't a case where it's the same." I really appreciate this take from @Liontamer because it speaks to the dilemma I faced when listening to this. It obviously feels like it's inspired by new-wave tracks from the days of drum machines where the rigid quantization was very much intentional. I see what you're going for here, but I think the lead synth programming still has plenty of room to be more expressive without subverting that feeling, with subtle modulation and expression or fills. The lead guitar breaks out of this rigid lockstep in a way that's very satisfying, so I have an immediate reference within the song for what it sounds like when you have a very expressive lead melody on top of the machine-like drum and synths that unfortunately makes the first half of the track feel underwhelming by comparison. That said, I was already pretty borderline with the last submission, and I can't deny that you did a great job of addressing nearly everything that we brought up. The mix is much cleaner, there's no more individual elements poking out of the mix in a distracting way, and you cleaned up some of the crunchy chords. While I do think there's room for additional development, I think this now sits comfortably above the bar. Great work taking all of the feedback to heart and putting it all together to push your arrangement where it needed to be! YES

What are you doing all the way down here? This has all the makings of a successful track - minusworld at the helm of the arrangement, a couple of clutch collaboration partners, and a banging source tune. Mario Party 2's soundtrack has always felt like it's begging for a triumphant rock opera upgrade. I don't have the rhythmic vocabulary to describe what you're doing here, but the prog is felt on a visceral level nonetheless. The transitions are handled deftly, which is usually the primary pitfall that prog rock arrangements can fall into, but cohesiveness is not a concern here at all. There's always something exciting happening - for being a song about outer space, you left no dead air across the 5 and a half minute runtime. It makes moments like 3:45 all the more gratifying when you finally let off the thrusters for a moment and just let it coast, and although the voice clips aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea, it felt appropriately tongue-in-cheek for me! Yeah, this is ridiculously satisfying, and did everything I could possibly want a prog rock arrangement of Space Land to do. I can't find any gripes worth noting - let's get this posted! YES

Yeah, honestly "additional piano, synth bass" doesn't really capture the scope of how much jnWake's "bullshit" helped sculpt the sound and direction of this piece - it was absolutely integral to the final product and this would not have come together without his contributions. More Wake+Emu collabs in 2025 for SURE

^ what she said 😆 Seriously though, I recall giving some very in-depth feedback on earlier versions of this track, and I am happy to say that this feels much further along in terms of personality and production quality than what I remember! The pace may be slow, but you're almost always moving in the right direction, and I admire the tenacity. I'll address just a few of the most prominent things that I heard to try and give some actionable advice, since others have done a good job giving a comprehensive overview of the song and what needs to happen with it. I actually like the idea of the church organ and the choir in isolation, but there's nothing pinning it to the rest of the song, so it feels tacked on. The jarring transition into the beef of the arrangement makes this intro feel detached, and when it returns at 2:10, the fade-in feels similarly unnatural. I think the idea can totally work, but the intro doesn't have enough time to develop. What I might try is actually extending the length of your intro, and starting with just the choir and organ and then fading your synth arpeggio in gradually over the next few bars before dropping into the EDM section. This can give each of those musical ideas some space to signal the upcoming transitional change to an electronic palette, without throwing too many brand-new ideas at the listener all at once. Chimpazilla did a great job addressing the lead synths so I'm just going to agree 100% with her critique there on what you got right and what needs work. 1:10-1:15 has some squelchy synths that are mixed very loud and sharp, almost like they're clipping unintentionally. Bring those down in volume. The backing synth plucks at 1:48-2:03 cause a similar problem - they are just as loud as everything else in the soundscape, but are clearly not intended to be the main point of focus, but because of how they're mixed, my ear can't help but focus on them. The hi-hat is also very loud and panned off to the right side - it's not playing a very exciting rhythm (not that it needs to be) but the mixing makes it hard to pay attention to anything else. This leaves me feeling everything feels like it's demanding my attention, and as the old adage goes... if everything is urgent, then nothing is. I'll highlight a few things that I liked about this to point out areas where I think you're on the right track. The filter sweep synths and rolling bassline from :13-:28 was great at establishing tension. I love the variety of sounds you used in here, it shows that you're experimenting to create a unique palette of instruments that has something original to offer. Overall, the use of filter sweeps makes the mix feel kinetic and engaging, there's never any points where you're dragging on the same ideas without any variation. I think you could probably stand to develop some of the ideas further and give them room to breathe before moving onto your next idea, but a short, punchy arrangement is definitely preferable to one that drags on too long. I don't feel that this arrangement comes together cohesively yet, but I certainly feel more of your artistic voice here compared to earlier versions, and the execution is leveling up slowly but surely too. This can definitely get there! NO (resubmit)

When I first listened to this, I actually clicked off after hearing the first few seconds because I was not vibing with the mix quality... coming back and listening to the full track, I realize the joke was on me the whole time! Nice fakeout. Definitely getting the physical modeled string feel from this too, good call on that @Hemophiliac. It sounds well above our bar for realism, though if we're getting nitpicky, there's a few points where I hear unnatural note cutoffs, like 3:06 in the cello. The phasing issue was already addressed but I also heard it too. There's clearly a great deal of care put into both the arrangement and programming here, weaving a number of different themes together delicately and getting really creative with the rhythm and harmony in the process. Any nitpicks I have are only that - nitpicks. Nice work! YES

I can't remember exactly how the previous submission sounded, so I'm also coming into this ostensibly blind. I really like the tension and atmosphere you've created with this intro, and although there's a few things I would have done differently myself, I think this intro serves its purpose capably. I don't have a lot of critiques, even the way you glitched out the string section at :53 was really cool, and signaled a change to come. When the beat drops in, my enthusiasm for the mix diminished slightly. I didn't find the sound design to be nearly as compelling or full-bodied, there's a lot of holes in the frequency spectrum that might not feel as off-putting if the intro wasn't so lush right before it . The strange thing is that, although there are relatively few things going on, it still feels muddy. It feels like you might have a lot of sub buildup from your kick drum that isn't audible, but nevertheless is muddying the soundscape. I can't tell for sure, but it might be worth looking at it through an EQ to see if there's a lot of inaudible rumble from your drums. Another thing that can help is shaping the stereo image of your low-end instruments, and making sure that the low frequencies of your bass are summed to mono. Sometimes, if you have sub frequency content bouncing around between stereo channels, it can lead to a mix that just sounds unstable. Also, check your reverbs to make sure you're cutting out low-frequency content that can clutter up a mix as well. Any of these things can lead to what I'm hearing in this mix, where your elements should feel punchy and immediate and they just don't. Once we progress further with the arrangement and you mix more of the orchestral/sound design elements with the beats, it feels better. I still think the drum programming is underwhelming, but with the strings adding some much-needed texture, it comes together reasonably well. I don't feel like anything quite reaches the highs of the intro, unfortunately, but I don't want to hold that against you as long as the rest of the track is up to the bar, and honestly, I'm borderline on it. There's a lot of great ideas here, the arrangement is dynamic and creative and shows a lot of vision, but just on a gut level, the execution still doesn't feel like it's there yet :( Chimpazilla used the word "disjointed" and, from a processing standpoint, I agree with that. This is very borderline for me, but I think I need to trust my gut here - I absolutely hear what you're going for with the 90's techno-influenced sections, but the production doesn't communicate that to me yet. I'd be happy to 1-on-1 this with you if it ends up not passing, since I'm sure I can give more actionable feedback if I can get into the specifics with you on individual elements. NO (resubmit)