prophetik music

my last vote centered around the oppressive feel of the mix and the limited sound palette, as well as some of the extended sections with a minimal amount of stuff going on. opens with some nice creepy arps and some woobly pads around the lavender town arpeggio. melody is there right away in some lower synths, and there's some sfx and a slow build into when it all hits at 0:56. the kick and bass have more punch this time than the last time i listened. the melody is carried by a distorted synth that feels kind of bland initially. there's a break with just some bass and snare at the 1:33 mark, and then another build (very similar but not quite to the first one) into a big bass triplet/gallop section. the track still feels kind of empty through here as it's primarily [bass and drums] and [arp] and [lead], and there aren't really a lot of other things to fill up the middle of the soundscape. there's a big style change at 2:25, led by a new bass groove, but it only lasts a few seconds. the subsequent break has a lot more body to it than it did the first time around, and the build has a lot more verve. i'd have liked a different kick fill than the last two. 3:13 is back to a similar feel as before - and, most damningly, it continues to use the same five or six elements. it's the same reversed arp tone, the same sweeps, the same lead tone, and the same bass riff as what started at 2:25. there's only so far you can stretch the same few things, no matter how much rhythmic variation you give each element - it really just sounds like you're alternating previous loops. 4:15 brings back the rising aleatoric sound with some heavily gated pad synths carrying the melody, but they're hard to hear. there's some subtractive elements for the ending, and it's done. it again cuts off hard instead of having a true fade. i think that, from a mastering perspective, this is a lot more listenable now. it's still loud and aggressive, and that makes sense from a stylistic perspective. my issue is that at no point does it actually feel upbeat and intense. all of the lead choices are very bland, and the lack of variety of sound choices behind those leads really makes it feel very rinse and repeat. separately, there's rarely a time where i feel the soundscape is filled out - i'm pretty sure there are pads going, but i rarely can tell they're there, and there's such a huge divide between the high arp sound (that never ever goes away) and the bass/kit that it's hard to connect them. i do think it's possible to use five instruments over a five-minute song and make it work. this track isn't doing that - there's enough variety in what's being said, but who's saying it becomes stale quickly. if you trim back some of the repetition (this track could probably be 3.5 minutes max pretty easily), and then focus on more intently crafting your soundscape and your lead choices especially, i think you'd have a much stronger track overall. NO

Original Decision Well I'm back, and thank you to the Judges for both being kind enough to suggest resubmitting and giving detailed feedback to action! So same story as last time, this is heavily inspired by what I'm listening to currently and right now that's Mandidextrous (Techno on My Mind) since she's in town this weekend! The other big thing that landed between last time and this is Reason 13, with an integrated sidechain tool that absolutely rocks for intuitive use, plus I discovered the Europa synthesiser rack extension (basically Serum for Reason). So with that in mind - addressing judge feedback and with a LOT of back and forth courtesy of the workshop channel on discord: - Stripped back the sausage significantly, removing the limiter and backing everything back to 0db before starting the mix again. - Added heaps of automation through the entire song to help drive build/decay elements and move the narrative along (yes it has a narrative - we arrive in Lavender Town, discover the truth of the tower, run from some ghosts and end up battling Sabrina - but did we win? At what cost?) - most significantly, totally replaced the bassline in the first section with a big filthy reese bass, cribbed from Neuro DnB. A friend dubbed it Neuro Hardcore. - added a couple extra layers of synths and relaxed out the main arp/chime sound to reduce the total overload. It's still heavy hard club music but maybe not quite so oppressive now? - this one is directly responding to Rexy and the fast triplets - added a phaser element to give that section some motion, but also rebuilt it to use a hand crafted laser effect (heavy modification of the earlier mentioned reese). In fact all of the synths have now had manual intervention to remove that "stock" feeling brought up by Liontamer. I think the end result is... Well, nowhere near what I originally intended this track to be, but it's a lot of fun to play loud and dance to (and make stinky bassface to in that middle bit 🤣), and I think it delivers on the promise of the extra long buildup at the start now. As bonus for me it mixes really well with Techno On My Mind so yay, I can play it in sets! Crossing fingers and toes, look forward to hearing back from the judges! Apologies for the external link, I still can't get the uploader to play nice. Games & Sources Pokemon Red - "Lavender Town"

in listening to this entire thing with an open mind, i do hear where there's a few specific thematic references to the original track (1:05, 2:21 for example). there's also some highly transformative sections, like the repeated descending section in the bass line that occurs several places (example: 2:06), which i wouldn't have tabbed being from this without knowing the context but understand where you came from after reading it. however, most of the track isn't recognizable in the slightest. this isn't a matter of not understanding the serial representation of the set you're using as far as i can tell - it's just that most of this is unintelligible. what's the point of speaking in tongues if there's no one to interpret? there's some genuinely interesting ideas in here - 3:31 for example is a pretty ripping take on the initial descending melodic line, with the frenetic sfx in the background and the very fast (if extremely repetitive) drums. but there's no usage of song form anywhere in this, there's no real synth design, and for the most part the master is "same volume for everything throughout". it's more reminiscent of the Undertale flowey fight's inanity, but that was far more defined and intentional than this is. this comes across as wild musings more than an intentionally crafted work. ultimately this falls short of several elements of the submission standards, but 4.3. the most: sorry, but this isn't something that we can post here. NO OVERRIDE

opens with what i think is ~30 of a joke, and then gets into the actual arrangement, so i'll start from there. opens with an expanded version of the dark world dungeon. there's some nice passing of the initial four-note pattern initially, and then a highly interpretive version of the dark world dungeon theme. this more outlines the chord structure and references the main riffs than it does directly arrange it - there's a lot of the original in the cello for example, but not a lot in the leading voices. there's a rhythmic and dynamic resolution around 1:57, and it starts referencing the ascending arpeggio riff from the NES dungeon. the melodic line here is roughly the same shape as the original's melody line that eventually comes in, but it's certainly more inspired by than it is the original's material. there's some octaves here that i didn't really care for in the scoring, actually - i would have much preferred more fleshed-out chords, at least partially because it wasn't obvious to me why those notes were being emphasized with octaves. the third section starts at 3:12 with some really fun disjointed and differently-timed ascending patterns. the cello here is overpoweringly loud for at least the first 20s or so. there's some resolution elements and it's done. there is what i think is some unintentional phasing going on throughout. later edit: this is apparently endemic to the samples used per the remixer, so it isn't something that we can correct easily. i also don't really get the first 35s and wouldn't mind if it was just from the true start of the piece that we posted. that said, what's here is a really interpretive and interesting take on several dungeon themes. there's a lot of complex arrangement going on here, and it's well-performed. what's here is still over my bar for execution as it's enjoyable and has a lot of depth in the performance and arrangement. YES

classic original. opens with some sfx and a screaming guitar riff. lots of verb on everything. bass has a really weird tone - the fundamental isn't the loudest element, so i'm guessing it's been layered with something to make it fuller (the distorted tone somehow isn't the only bass tone there?), or else a super-notched EQ. that opening section sounds very strange as a result. the petrucci-esque guitar that comes in right after is fun, and it's also super loud but the bass sounds better with it. it sounds like none of the instruments are in the same room - lead has a ton of verb on it, rhythm and bass don't, and drums have some arena long-tail verb on them. lead guitar riffs at 1:00 sound great. tom groove going into 1:29 sounds like a fill pattern that got reused a lot - doesn't really feel like a tom groove, although i like the idea. 1:29's drums are the same as the opening - guessing the chips are as well. i like the addition of strings that happens partway through this section. it adds a lot to the feel. 2:27's section is the same as 1:00 (backing is the same, lead is up an octave initially). that said, i love the escalating elements of this section, and it's easily the best part of the piece. the opening in the bass is enough for me to say no on this, and the subsequent reuse of drums throughout isn't a great thing either (although i do like most of your fills, they really feel nice and keep it rolling forward a lot). i'd love to hear some more variety in the drums and fills in the first half, so that the second half (which currently has a lot of repeated parts) can stay the way it is now. you may also want to consider unifying your verb throughout so that the instruments sound like they're more in the same area. this is a fun track! i don't think these tweaks would really take a long time to execute on, so hopefully we see you back soon. NO

This is my take on the track with a metal/guitar-driven focus. I recreated the chiptune elements myself from scratch to accompany the more modern guitar/bass/drum sound to blend the two eras. All guitars are performed by myself and I used the Neural Petrucci amp sim to transpose the rhythm guitars down by 10 steps to create a more 7/8-string guitar vibe, although everything was tracked on my 6-string. I felt as though that prominent bassline was crying out for a super low-tuned guitar sound and I think it came together nicely. I tweaked the timing a little to give it a bit more of a punchy staccato vibe which also lent itself well to guitar. I threw in some ad-libs to the arrangement, referencing the main theme of the game on guitar at times, with another cheeky reference at the end of the track that foreshadows the melody of the syndicate headquarters in the sequel to the game. Games & Sources Original track: "The Last Soul" (Round 8) from Streets of Rage 1, by Yuzo Koshiro.

opens with some filtered stutter synths. we get a lot more instruments at 0:14 - it gets pretty dense really quickly. a quick freq analysis sees a lot of sub-40hz content that's really clogging up the bottom of the mix. it also sounds like the hats are filtered alongside the arp - which means there's not much high content at all. so it sounds pretty condensed. dropping a significant highpass on the stuff below 40hz would be a big help. beyond that, the track is so compressed. it's very dense and oppressive. turning everything down a lot, getting volumes roughly where you want them before your compression and limiting, would be a big positive. there's a bit of a break with sfx at the 1:00 mark, and then we're back to a repeat of the first 30s of the full band sound. this is followed by another sfx break with some electro guitar in there to mix it up a bit (but the backing elements just repeat twice in a row), and then we're back to another repetition of 0:30-1:00...and, well, you get the picture. there's a lot of wholesale repetition that just gets tiring. something to change it up each time - even changing synths would help! - is really needed to avoid it just being repeated over and over again. better to repeat something once too few times than once too many. the same 30s of full band repeats like five or six times with various sfx around it until around 3:45 when the arp finally stops. the next several 16-bar sections involve the full band section repeating with various instruments added in or out, but it's the same thing overall. it repeats a few more time and then it's done with a kind of weird pitch as a final note. there's some audible static as well that just drops after a few seconds. overall i like the concept - 90s house is a specific vibe and i think that SoR would fit that a lot. what's here though is maybe one minute of material stretched over five. i know that house can be repetitious, but there's loads of examples of keeping the overall feel moving consistently by using instruments that have natural change over time. this just sounds like the same 30s repeated at least ten times, with a few breaks for sfx that also have similar backing elements. i'd suggest trimming the length way back and finding ways to never say the same thing twice the same way. add a new instrument, change a synth, use a different drum fill, etc. - it's going to add a ton to the overall package. NO

if this is a brand-new project, i don't know if it counts as a resubmission. opens with some organ outlining the chords and the opening melodic line. there's a stutter synth here that doesn't really fit the organ and voices, but then an edm beat comes in so it makes more sense. beat feels pretty cluttered - the snare has a lot of low content, kick feels unfocused, there's several low synths in this section, and the fills feel like they're layered on top instead of being different things the drums are doing. 0:27 has the melodic content come in for the first time in full. i really don't care for this lead as it's very occluded and hard to hear what it's doing. i do like the call and response concept that's going on there though! there's a break right after this for a bit, and then we get a new lead at 0:55. and then another new synth bass at 1:09, and another new lead at 1:23! it's a lot of change in a short period of time. it's ok to lean on one tone to help to tie sections together - this feels a little too bouncy between ideas (although i like the ascending arp a lot, and the 404 bassline that's right after it). there also continues to be a lot of drum fills that are complex and dense, and a little less there might be ok - a few well-timed tom hits are better than the same complex fill over and over. there's a break at 1:47 - and then a bigger break at 2:02, with some sound design on the transition. this goes into an outro that repeats the opening idea, and it's done. after hearing it, i'm remembering this one from when i voted on it in 2022 (and several times before). i think you've got a lot better overall sound quality than you did last submission! i'd like to see more cohesiveness from section to section, a few of the more complex leads reined in, and a lot more work on the drums - less of the same big complex fills and more intentionality about what it's doing. NO

all five previous submissions most recent rejection It has been some time since I have taken a crack at this track. This one is a brand new project, and I tried to use some of what I learned on my Twisted Systerz submission. It's the first walkabout theme from Dragon Warrior 2. I give thanks for the time and consideration ahead of time:) Games & Sources

opens with a kick-heavy beat and pads. there's a lot going on in the bottom 100hz and it doesn't have a ton of punch like i'd expect, and is somewhat dull. a synth bass comes in (in the same octave as the pad), and this progresses towards a break at 0:39 that adds some arps. there's some nice automation on the autopanned arp that works towards the front, although the panning is so wide it's a little confusing on headphones. this section drags a touch as it goes on as not a lot is going on during it, and there's not a lot to bring it back to the original outside that descending bassline (which isn't super unique). the remixer puts the screws in at 1:16 and we get a lot more going on and a big beat right there. again there's not a lot used from the original outside that initial descending lick (no arp, none of the actual melody line). there's another break with some guitar at 1:55 - that was pretty fast getting back to the build - and again this section feels like it drags a bit as it kind of just is a repeated pattern over and over, and there's no crescendo or anything to build energy, just adding new instruments after a few bars. i'd love to hear some more automation like what you had the first time around, adding in additional elements and building energy towards your big payoff chorus at 2:33. 2:33 hits and we get the solo that was called out in the writeup. there's some fun licks in here but overall i'd want to hear more movement and leaning into the chords themselves some more. there's some repetition in here too which is a bummer - this is your time to shine creatively! there's not really an ending, it just hits a note and it's done. there's a loud blap at the end that i think is the result of your volume automation not going to the end of the track. this is a neat idea! i like the synth-rock vibe - so many people just make lavender town creepy (or totally blasted-out EDM), so the darkwave/synth rock feel is a neat one that definitely has legs. and i like a lot of your choices for instrumentation. i feel like right now this is a great framework, and what's needed next is some more glam. i'd love to hear more from the actual lavender town original (there's only really one synth line used throughout the track - i think there's room to use more!), and i'd love to hear a lot more ear candy in each section - especially the transitions. lastly i think that the track sounds a bit dull throughout, and finding a way to keep the kick meaty without having it walk all over some of your other synth elements would really help the mix pop. i'm sure @Chimpazilla can give some suggestions about the mix. this isn't there yet! but it's a great start. the workshop discord can definitely help this get moving. NO

I recreated the production of the track from scratch, based mainly on the main melody of Lavender Town, a melody that could make us uncomfortable as children, and that currently has been the main course of most Pokémon Creepypastas. Having those two things, I started with the creation of the remix, where you can appreciate the dark and gloomy atmosphere that takes us back to that town. The remix is of the Synth Rock genre, so we can notice the characteristic Synthwave basses, synthesizers of the genre, chorus, Cubone's scream and some distorted electric guitars (although relaxed at the beginning of the song), but in the middle of the track around minute 1: 57 you can notice a change to a more aggressive guitar, accompanied by a Screamo voice that I myself had the pleasure of recording to use it in the track as accompaniment and finally around 2:34 thus entering a synth and guitar solo that would give end to the track. Games & Sources "Lavender Town", in this case named: "Ghost Town" is my remixed version of the song that we can hear in our adventure through the Kanto region within the first installments of the renowned collectible monster video game, "Pokémon", released on the Game Boy portable console in 1996 in Japan... Developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo itself. Originally composed by Junichi Masuda. Pokémon accompanied me during my childhood with its anime and video games, and motivated by those beautiful memories, I ventured to create my own Remix, reimagining the original track from scratch and in a completely different musical genre, called, Synth Rock. I would like to share the original song: (Excuse me for publishing a channel that is not directed by Junichi himself, but it is the only area where I found the original version in better quality)

sfx opening, and then we get some chips and foley for the opening out of machine gun. there's a neat vibe that comes in once the beat and everything's active, and then we get the filters dropped and the 'real' vibe hits at 0:34. this is a really head-bobbing feel, and i really like the variety of sounds used. lot of sidechain on the lead at 0:57 when the melodic line comes in. there's tons of stuff changing and coming in every few bars which is neat, and it doesn't ever lose the core of the feel. there's a big drop at 1"59, and we get the driving feel still but it's all in the bass synth. there's some noodling around with the MwtMG theme, and it builds up to a big hit at 2:56 that's a chopped up version of the upbeat section from The Landing to my ears. i like the chord changes here as well - simple patterns but really updates the feel. there's a bit of a beat change right before the ending, and then it's done. ending isn't really prepped but what's here works fine. mix on this is great, it's loud and in your face and never feels squeezed. the kick's this huge boomy roomy sound and i think it works perfectly. what an enjoyable track. love the energy and love the style. excellent work. YES

Oh it's been a long time OCRemix! I was going through old computer files and found this track I apparently made in 2016, and just never uploaded....sorry about that. Anyway, here's a track that mostly remixes "The Man With The Machine Gun", which itself is a 1980s sounding track. My remix mostly takes that and dials it all up to 11. Keep doing what you do OCR team! Sorry it's been so long, life just got in the way, but here's to another 25 years of OCR! Games & Sources FFVIII - Man with the Machine Gun FFVIII - The Landing

my original vote loved the arrangement but had concerns over the instrumentation effectiveness. my second vote called out some execution elements but really liked the improvement in the instrumentation. piano opens with some sustained strings. cello is a new tone but has a lot more personalization to it, which is neat. there's a flip in the first line that's a little unnatural, but what's here is fine. if you've got the ability to vary vibrato, consider doing that more on the start of sustained lines or in moving sections. you vary rhythm a lot to make it feel more real and less quantized, and i think it's a little on the far side of that now to where the rhythm seems a touch off. the note at 1:16 sounds wrong (second descending tone). i really like the choir entrance. it's spooky and has a cool sound to the vocals. cello here sounds great too, really rough and mean. the string drops sound a little weird but aren't wrong, just don't sound real. there's some clipping in this section, notably at 2:23 and 2:55 - this just needs an actual limiter put on it. i think you're not EQing what's going to your reverb and that might be what's causing some of the boominess, alongside the bodhran or whatever the main drum that's in this section being very fundamental-focused and right in the front left (so it's very loud). consider backing it off a bit. 2:55 feels better than before, i think, but the lightness of the strings themselves shows here as compared to the cello part. the brass coming in at 3:22 is a big help and gives the partwriting some balls which it really needed. this is a triumphant section and i like it a lot, just needs to not clip. there's one more recap and it's done. i think what's here would be enough to pass if that middle section didn't clip like mad. the main issue is, i think, the bodhan you're using. it sounds dull and lifeless, and it occupies a lot of frequency range down low. you've got a few ways to address that: scoop the heck out of everything else in that frequency range so it speaks through easier without having to crank the volume choose a different percussion instrument to that speaks higher to let it cut through easier turn it down and live with it not being so far forward either way you need a limiter that's going to prevent clipping implemented at the end of your mastering chain so that it's not hitting 0.0. i think, for me, if you did that, this'd be enough. if you wanted to go farther, i think that making the section at 2:55 shorter (maybe only running through half the theme) and then fleshing it out sooner will help with the depth of that section from a part-writing perspective, and i think that reining in the overly-dynamic rhythms on the solo cello would be a good choice. but this is real close, zanezooked! we just had an accepted track go through eight revisions, and i certainly don't see this needing that many changes to make it. NO

original vote second vote there's a story in the submission notes of past votes, i recommend reading them since this is kind of a story piece but they're very long so i didn't copy them here - proph Third times a charm? :) Thank you all for your feedback on the first two drafts of this piece. This is an interesting hobby because you need to be competent in both the creative skills of writing music and in the very technical skills of mixing, mastering, and otherwise massaging the sound. I appreciate the help you’ve given me on both aspects, especially the technical side, which is a brand new world to me. I was a bit confused about the feedback on the solo cello. Some praised the tone, others criticized it. Chipzilla seemed to think that the cello used only a single articulation. In fact it used no articulations. It was a SWAM instrument, and entirely procedural, based on how I played it on the EWI. I honestly thought that was a strength of the piece, a really expressive solo cello that you don’t usually get with samples. But I guess that didn’t come across, perhaps because I played it with a wind instrument, ha. Anyway, rather than try to massage what was already there, I tossed it out and brought in the Apocalyptica solo cello from Musio instead. This turned out to be a perfect match for this piece, as the samples are performed by the Finnish cello metal group (!) Apocalyptica, and it has both a wonderfully expressive legato patch and an aggressive, grinding rhythm patch. So although I had to throw out my own performance, once I reworked the solo cello parts to “write to the samples,” I ended up much happier with the result. Other things I did: Remixed and remastered everything. Pretty sure the volume should be good now. Removed the master volume automation tweaking identified by Prophetik. Seeing that in the waveform was illuminating. Evened out the balance of octaves at the 2:57 mark, in response to Prophetik. Did this by: Doubling the strings with their common woodwind pairings at 2:57, to thicken the melody and harmony lines Tweaked which lines were played in which octaves. Adding the full cello section in unison with the solo cello, thickening the low end Added more humanization to the piano I hope this is finally up to par! Games & Sources Myth: The Fallen Lords The Siege of Madrigal, by Michael Salvatori The Fallen Lords, by Marty O'Donnell Myth II: Soulblighter The Great Library, by Marty O'Donnell