prophetik music   Judges ⚖️

this is 26 seconds long with 28s of silence after it. it's a neat tech demo concept but isn't close to what we could accept here unfortunately. there's nowhere near enough development of arrangement to meet our arrangement requirements, and the instrumentation isn't what we'd expect to see either. i'd encourage you to review the Standards - notably points 1.2., 4.2., and 5.2 - as they detail what we expect for our site. if you fleshed this arrangement out some more and looked into some of the free VSTs and sample packs that are available on the web, i definitely think you could turn this into something legit! but what's here isn't there yet. consider the Workshop discord or forum for additional resources. NO

The song is a very short arrangement of the Song of Storms from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, it's abou 54 seconds long, I chose to make it short so it can be used maybe as a ringtone or a short background song Games & Sources Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Song of Storms

such a goofy soundtrack. the melodic line is so angular, all the ascending fourths are an inverse of the bassline so that's really fun. opens with detuned, crispy chords that echo the flute element in the original. 0:17 is where the percussive elements come in, and i agree, they are drowning in reverb. it's a lot lot. bass and melody come in together at 0:32. the lead instrument is a really unique sound with the detuning on it. the vocal clips are real interesting too. there's a guitar that comes in around 1:05 and noodles through the melody, and soon after we get what sounds like an accordion or organ with vocal clips on top. this is another interesting sound profile, but admittedly the feel is getting tired by here after 90+ seconds of the same thing. there's mercifully a break right after this at around 2:10 - this would have been a good time to do a different drum pattern for a bit to give it a break before going back to the original feel at 2:26 when the bass comes back in. the track keeps the same feel with a recap of the original synth lead before a sudden stop for an ending, and then it's done. i really don't care for ＡＥＳＴＨＥＴＩＣＳ that much so this genre isn't one i'm super familiar with. overall i feel that the track is pretty stilted and repetitive, although the concept is neat initially. the effects work on the vocals and leads is pretty impressive. the reverb that's washing the whole track does feel less like the lush, rich reverb i've come to associate with synthwave and other microgenres around it and more like playing a speaker in a bathroom - it's a lot colder and harsher than i'd have expected. so i guess i'm not sure if my thoughts are appropriate here or not. i'll wait to get some perspective from other judges. ??? edit 7/31: i listened to a pile of stuff that emu wrote, and read through the other judge writeups. i need to state that i think that this genre is nonsense and the genre norms that it encourages sound wretched, way more so than sludge rock or crunkcore or other similarly niche concepts, so that's the context of this vote. but comparing lucas's track to his reference track, lucas's verb is far more present (and metallic, it does sound like spring verb, good call kris) than the other examples provided. comparing it to most of the 'chillwave' and 'vaporwave' tracks on emu's reference vid, the reverb is again more metallic - and, more importantly, the instrumentation feels far more separated. the percussion for example feels like it's a totally different song's percs layered in, same with the bass. i agree that the vocal clips are handled really well, and the obviousness of the low-poly approach is clear. but man, this just sounds like something that comes from a kid's electronic toy that took a dive at bath time. the reverb just feels too much. and that's aside from how angular and stiff the actual arrangement feels. NO

not quite 4db of headroom. this is a bop of an original, never heard it before. opens with some keys playing some chord blocks that are really, really loud compared to what's going on in the background. there's some heavily filtered riffage in the background, and eventually we get a bass element at 0:23 that's playing some of the bass riff from 0:13 in the original. there's the melodic element brought in at 0:57, and it's in a traditional detuned piano. there's a bit of harmony after a while, and then the melody gets passed to a new instrument at 1:36. the keys at this part are again really loud compared to everything else. there's a shift at 2:15 to reduce the instrumentation and drop the drums and to layer the lead with a buzzy pad that's much lower. it does this a second time, and then it's done. i'll be the first to note that lo-fi doesn't mean put a lowpass at 3khz on the entire track, which is what's happened here as far as i can see. so from a mix perspective, this needs some definite assistance. i'll page resident lofi expert @Emunator to suggest some more applicable production techniques since he'll be 1000% more detailed than i could be. in terms of the arrangement, what's here is very straightforward and simple. lo-fi doesn't mean that you can't still have a creative adaptation, and what's here is pretty much just a transcription. adding more LTH to it and not leaning so heavily on what made the original track great would be a great choice here. i think the workshop discord can definitely assist with giving some additional feedback and perspective on how to make the arrangement more personalized. this isn't there yet, but it's a neat idea and i think it has legs. i'd love to hear it with a better mix and more personalization. NO

>5db of headroom. opens with a straightforward version of the original in piano, which quickly adds some band stuff at 0:13. mix is very dense in the low mids especially and is very muddy. sounds pretty low-poly too, like it's been downsampled at some point - it feels like when i used to run 64kbps on my 256mb mp3 player so i had enough room for all my songs =D 0:29, a guitar lead comes in. it's fantastically handled and sounds great. the arrangement up through here is doing a good job of letting the fun parts of the original come through and not getting in its own way. there's a break at 1:24, again with the keys. we get an electro build-up (i really expected edm after that), and then we get another guitar solo that again is great and well-handled. another electro break and there's a recap at 2:08 with the guitar leading again. one more lick in the piano, and it's done. this is a really fun arrangement! it's nothing over the top or complex, but it does a great job highlighting the reasons this is such a heavily covered theme. the lead guitar does a fantastic job especially with the solos. my main issue is the mastering sounds pretty rough. there's a ton of sub-40hz content which is gumming things up, as is a very broad and dense freq package between like 100-300hz. you have a ton of fundamental and not much in the mid to high mid space, which makes it sound really heavy and cluttered. cleaning that up is just a matter of pulling back some of the filtering on the lead elements (the keys sound like they've got a significant low-pass on them for example) and notching in the EQ on some of the other instruments to avoid conflicts between, say, the rhythm guitar and kick. this is really close to being super fun! just adjust some of the mix and we'll be there. NO

at least 5db of headroom, realistically, probably more. opens with some clavinet, and we get some bass guitar and percussive elements pretty quickly before a full band sound at 0:15. nothing really sounds like there's been a mixing pass done on it - the snare's got a lot of fundamental, the kick is hard to hear, the bass is very fundamental as well and boomy, and it sounds like there's no room sound on most of the instruments that play notes. but the band sound is neat - i like the lead tone, and the keys in the background are nice as is the ensemble horns. the arrangement is surprisingly similar to the original given that they have very different feels. most of the burbles and accent elements are from the original. but the solos are really nice - there's some really solid playing there. several elements are reused a lot - the transition radio effect is used several times. the ending doesn't really exist, either, which is a bummer. adding a single rolled chord at the end would have been an easy way to end it. this is a fun, quick ride through a neat theme. the mix isn't near showtime, but the performance is. get some EQ on these instruments and some proper compression, and get the gain up, and this'll be good enough for me. but what i really want to hear is for that repeated transitional element to be switched out, add a bit more drizzle to the arrangement so the countermelodic elements aren't so similar to the original, and to get a real ending that isn't just layering in the previously-used clip. NO

track is hard-limited to -2dba and has some visible waveform clipping. opens with some very verby elements - piano, muted guitar, and electric guitar in octaves. lot of panning. a huge, heavy beat comes in at 0:39 and it clips pretty hard there. there's some other pad elements but everything feels so loud that i can't really hear what's going on. at 1:01, the texture thins out again, and there's some neat little bell elements. we get a transition into 1:35 where the melody's in the voice. there's a very loud, low piano part that's unfortunately causing more clipping here. the kick comes back in at 2:08 and exacerbates the clipping and distortion that's going on. it's unfortunate because what's here - the piano swimming in reverb, various lead elements, the bells - sounds really cool, but it's just very crunchy in a way that doesn't sound intentional. there's an outro flourish and it's done. most of your elements are not EQ'd at all, to my ear. at the very least, you're going to want to apply an EQ to each instrument that cuts unwanted frequencies. right now several instruments are pushing sound below 40hz, and it's causing everything to sound cluttered and muddy. turning everything down overall and then ensuring that instruments aren't transmitting in ranges you don't want them will help a lot. you have several competing instruments in the low range as well - stripping that back a bit will also help. this is a really, really cool arrangement, and i love the approach especially in your lead choices between the guitar and voice. if we can clean up the unintentional clipping, this could be really stellar. NO

intense open. that synth in the opening is really fun. and the fading in guitar is great. drums come in with bass at 0:23 and it sounds way, way, overcompressed. drums have zero punch, especially the kick, and they've been scooped pretty hard to my ears. there's an enormous peak in this opening section where the bass is, at about 80hz, and it's a lot of pressure in my ears. everything sounds hyper-notched and heavily boosted within that notch. EK's voice is really loud without any formant boost which is part of the issue - she takes up a lot of the freq range - and also her voice's reverb is really present and loud, which is also occupying freq range. gregorio's growls are pretty deep, and that might be affecting it a bit too - some formant boost in the low 2k range would help him to pop without being so loud. the chorus really highlights some of what i called out. ek's reverb on her voice is louder than the drums - cutting that back a bit, turning down her voice a decent amount, and pushing her formant a bit will allow you to get the band sound more balanced. the kick is all beater and no beef - the drum patterns sound really cool, but i just can't hear what they're doing. the beater tone is louder than the overheads for example. bass is pretty loud for not having a very bright attack tone - again, most of this track, the bass peaks at 80hz or so and i'd expect it to be an octave below that, at 40hz (edit: this is apparently unfamiliarity with the genre, my mistake). the rhythm guitar parts feel very noisy and not particularly meaty - that might be with how they're tracked, i am not as good at that stuff. but i'll note that the lead guitar part that comes in right after feels thin. that might be due to the choice of distortion and amping, or due to the EQing. gonna page @pixelseph for more specific recs around that. the chorus with harmonies, at 2:40, feels good and aggressive from an arrangement perspective. ek's harmony voice needs to be heavily EQ'd down to be a lot thinner, and again formant boosted so it pops. that'll help it not press back so much on the guitar elements in the same range. it's not super clear why her harmony part isn't in the same rhythm as the melodic line - that'd be easy to fix in melodyne if you wanted to. there's a big break at 3:18, and i think this emphasizes how loud everything is. there's just the lead guitar by itself and it's loud loud, and then everything else comes in and it's so present. the bass is way, way too loud here, especially under the growls that come in right after. i like this section as a break section though - it's intense and a fun idea. the unison section right after this at 4:14 is something i didn't care for at all. unison singing is one of the hardest things to do in a way that 'feels' right because our ears so naturally identify phasing and intonation issues at the unison. ek does an admirable job, but the reinforcement of the two parts makes it way louder than everything else. we go through another chorus - this might be five times? and they all sound the same, at least mixing up rhythmic elements would be a huge improvement - and hit the last big chord to fade it out. so, yes, i agree that there's a lot to be done on the production side here before this is really there. something this big is always such an undertaking. i think the performances are great! and i like the approach a lot. i wouldn't have minded more personalization throughout, but the big dealbreaker for me is the mastering. crank the bass back, fix ek's effects chain and formant/eqing, and spend some time getting the drums to be punchier and the overall mix to not have such a huge peak at 80hz, and you're going to have a much more enjoyable experience overall. NO

truly a seminal original. opening has some nice glam on the lead's octaves. swelling pads have some nice movement too. beat hits at 0:41 with the iconic arpeggio line initially. i agree that it's very fast and feels really frenetic. there's no real melodic material here, it's just the arp. a bit of a build into 1:39 where the melody line shows up for the first time. the kick here is interesting, and the backing elements being stripped so far back to really just the down-flam of the piano rolled chords is an interesting idea. there's some crunchy notes in here (notably 2:05). 2:17's a recap of the original arp with some very simple elements from the B section, and there's some more percs added in over time. there's a recap of 1:39's melody line, and there continue to be some crunchy notes (i think that the bass and drum line are repeated completely as well). 3:34 is a break with a recap of the opening glammy line. there's a build at 3:53 to get it moving again for one last blow through the A theme, again repeated from earlier. this isn't 1:1 to 1:39, but it's very clear where each chunk was copied and pasted into this section. there's no real ending, just a final line from the opening section. this feels a little too boxed up for me, i think. it's very clear where the 90s or so of material you arranged originally ends, and then it's just repeated in various combinations for the next three or so minutes. there really should be significant variation in the big chorus sections with the drums going, and i don't hear that at all - it really just sounds like the same thing each time. i think the sonic palette sounds great, and i like the approach overall a lot. i think there needs to be more detail on the individual sections so they're not just repeated blocks from earlier in different combinations. there's also some real crunch in several points that should be addressed. it's a cool concept! i think it needs less repetition. you could probably knock a minute plus off of the overall length without losing anything. NO

low opening. intro bass has some movement on it and seems like a dressed-up version of the original. beat and lead start at 0:17. the static tone to the countermelodic material is a bit tiresome - i'd love to hear some decay or movement on it. kick is also kind of blah - i don't hear sidechain, so it doesn't really pop as much as i'd expect for something like this. short break and a loop comes in for the drums at 0:59. again the kick doesn't pop, and the loop itself is kind of obvious, but there's some movement after about 30s which is needed. there's no pad through here either so the arrangement doesn't feel like it's progressing - it's the same as before, with different drums added in. the lack of change to the main instruments, like LT talks about, is also a factor here. 1:27 adds more drums but nothing else changes. same same, we need some progression to the track. even breaks in between the melodic representation can help with that - this is just hammering the melody over and over. 2:00ish is just the countermelodic instrument, and again, this is needing to be mixed up. there's a few different things in the drums but overall this is oatmeal. there's more of the same for a while, with different combinations of the same instruments doing the same thing. so a key problem here is that nothing changes. we don't get personalized melody, altered chords, new keys, new countermelodic material after the initial representation, not anything. this is a sub-one minute loop that's been stretched to over five minutes by way, way too much repetition. i'd seriously consider stripping it back to a minute at most, and then finding new ways to represent the general synthwave idea (which i think works really well, to be fair) in more unique ways. this is just too much repetition, and too much of a static nature. NO

i voted on this way back in 2022, and primarily had issues with a bunch of notes that were crunchy. tbh i don't remember it much. opens with some stutter synths and pads, and we get some percs to help it build in. the bass hits at 0:27, and i agree with joe - it sounds nice. the smooth lead is a fun feel, and there's a quirky repeated note in the background that's doing fun stuff. i wouldn't mind if the bass tone was a bit more sustained. the snare at 0:55 is indeed a bit big, but tbh i think it actually needs more reverb, not less (and make it quieter, yes) so it feels more sustained alongside all these other verby synths. the melodic material there is the first that we've heard, and it's fairly straightforward. there's a continued reliance on viio chords as outlined in the ascending skip section of the melody, and it still doesn't sound right. this is something i called out in my last review of the track - i'll try and spell it out more carefully here. the chord at 0:58.5 is a G# fully diminished (G# B D F, also called G#o or vii o in this key), and the bass playing something that sounds like an E. the detuning on the bass might be causing this, but overall, the real issue is that you're putting an E in the bass next to an F in the chord. you should probably just make this an E7 (E in bass, and E G# B D above it), and let the F in the melody be a passing tone (or move it around so it fits). this is an issue every time it comes around. after the melodic section, we get some ascending patterns around 1:22 in the lead. this is a lot of the same lead tone in a row, and may have been better served with a different tone here. and then, at 1:36, you use the same lead tone to do some fanfares (but lower than the other ascending line). this is nearly impossible to distinguish and just sounds overlapping and confusing. the following section at 1:50 is, in contrast, a nice change due to the new lead and feel there. i think you could have moved away from the echoed, gated, chippy backing synth as well, to help reinforce the difference. there's a fun little break, and at 2:18 we're into a new feel. again, the issue of the G# dim is back, and it's worse here. every time that chord comes around, it sounds like there's obvious dissonance. that needs to be fixed before anything could be posted. there's a short outro section in ep, and it's done. it's a little sudden, and maybe could have been prepped or fleshed out a bit more. this is a fun track, and i like the feel. the dissonance is still an issue and this cannot pass with it in there. i'd be happy to help you identify and fix it if you'd like - i suspect it's an easy thing to find. beyond that, the layering at 1:36 needs to be shifted around so it's able to be differentiated - probably by moving one of the parts to a different instrument. i think that snare could use some love too - i didn't mind it near as much as joe, but it does need a more natural reverb tail on it (and to be turned down) so it fits into the instrumentation better. i don't think there's an issue with the 808, as that's endemic to the style. i do agree with joe that the arrangement overall is fun and enjoyable, we just need to fix a few things and then it's ready for primetime. NO

we reviewed this on the 6/18 NO SHOW. in general, we all felt that this was too light on arrangement. there's little in the instrumentation (besides the percs/vocal elements) that isn't already in the original. there's some fun percussive elements, and i actually really thought that the vocal clips fit this song better than some of your others, but the arrangement made it a moot point. we gave some more in-depth notes on the show itself. i noted some copypasta in the backing elements as well. overall, this needs more of you, and less of mitsuda. NO

we covered this one extensively on the 6/18 NO SHOW. my big highs on this one were the guitars coming in at 1:00, some of the synth choices, most of what the drums are saying conceptually, and the bass tone at the end. my big negatives here were the lack of humanization in the drums, the overall lack of direction to the arrangement (it just kind of sits in the same place for a long time and needs more dynamic contrast throughout, especially in the drums), and that it feels right now like far too much repetition throughout (this could easily be >60s shorter). i'm not going to do a huge writeup as we went over it in detail in the live show. i definitely think what you've got here is a great framework. some more attention to the arrangement's shape and possibly getting away from the arp as the main element for a time in the middle will make that last third a lot more impactful. NO

Its a bird! Its a plane! Its another PS1 RPG!!! Someone on discord talked about specialists and people who focus on certain kind of games and styles and well, maybe that's me. I will reach out my little tendrils sooner or later but when I heard about the live Judge NO Show? I was like, I HAVE to get one in there lol. While not guaranteed or anything, this was also close enough that I'm fine with it out of my hands anyway. But to that point really, I also don't mind this out of my hands because I was finished this song a long time ago! That's because this song was made backwards lol. I finished the second half first as just something vibin for my tiny YT channel and myself. I liked it so much I didn't wanna touch it ya know? But i also wanted to do this song for OCR at some point....but I already did it in a way I love....but I dont wanna change it either! Arggh whats a musician to do?! Oh, I'll just add a looong intro and then fuse the two! That'll work....right? Lol, who knows and the two sides came together in a way I'm happy with, but lets be real honest here. This song is essentially three loops. Loop A, Loop B, and Loop B2 if you will. I think...it could be fair to say the song could, for some, overstay its welcome. But man I vibe with it so much, I had to do it twice haha. B2 is a bit different in small ways and as is my calling card at this point, has a vox over top. I think I said this before in another sub but i used to be self-conscious about that but now I embrace it! Anyway, almost done here. On the composition side I have consistently been weak in my percussion but I wanted to try and be free and spicy but it could be too...messy in the beginning. However, the back end is a lot more conventional (for me). Which makes sense because the two were made at different times. From a production standpoint, I tried to make the two sides sound similar enough so it wasnt jarring when things changed. I think its okay but I am biased. Also...every time I think about the percussion sounds fine to me it sounds weak to others so uh, im curious how that works out this time. Anyway, thanks as always and much love. Until next time. Games & Sources Source: Sailing ~ Another World Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda

notably louder in the right ear until the kit comes in, and that's a pretty sharp tone to be isolated like that. tone overall is super bass heavy and boomy in the lows a lot. the kick and bass in the opening have a ton of presence on the fundamental. vocals are very sharp - formant has been overly boosted and they are more piercing than i'd like. at the prechorus at 0:45, i lose the lead line in the harmonies - that needs to be doubled and separately brought up. there's a bit of a break/transition at 1:10, and then it kicks back up at 1:18. the prosody on the third line "promised to not leave you there" is a bit weird as you sit on 'to' instead of a more important word. we get another chorus section with a too-quiet lead right after, but i like the backing elements a lot here. back to the verse at 1:57, and again the prosody is a bit weird through here as the sustained words are usually not important words. the fast change to 'pain and blame' is confusing too. there's a fast transition to a quick break before we're back to the prechorus section again. the subsequent chorus at 2:48 is again a nice sound, and the lead seems a bit stronger this time around so that's good. there's some solos to play us out, before a big drop at 3:23 quotes some of the opening before a final chord to finish it. this is a neat concept, and you've clearly got a good idea on how to frame and shape a track like this - it flows nicely throughout, there's some fun hooks, and you don't let the backing elements become boring, which is great. i think my main issues are with the mix being very boomy while the vocals are very sharp in some sections (edit: this is the same issue i had with the chorus on your SH remix that recently got posted), and separately the prosody in several sections is not very smooth. i didn't see the original comments from DoD, so i don't have context on why this track placed where it did. i think mostly your singing tone is good (it gets nasally and pointed once and a while, but overall sounds nice), and issues there are more with the EQing of the voice parts. this isn't there yet. i certainly don't think it needs a different singer - just some updates to the mix, and maybe settling some words a bit more. NO