prophetik music

really wide panning right off the bat, with virtually no room verb/sound on the guitars. drums are pretty far back in the mix and don't have any body to them. they're playing fun stuff but i just can't hear the kick at all. bass is essentially unable to be heard as well. you've got a ton of mud in the 100-200hz area that needs to be EQed out, mostly in the lower guitars. scooping them harder will help a lot. overall a lot of EQ is needed. the track doesn't technically clip but it's clear that it's right up against the line repeatedly, that's something else that should be addressed so that it's not the guitars pushing it there but rather a combination of elements. the arrangement is also too short. there's not really a ton here aside from the adaptation to the style. we require more transformative arrangement than what's shown here - adding more of your own flourish to the track will help a lot, as will finding ways to extend the duration of the track without having it just be repeated material done the exact same way. there's not even an ending here, which could have helped extend it. i think that DoD's environment would help a lot to up your mastering game. the workshop discord/forums here also would help a lot for identifying how to get more meat out of your guitars and drums and better balance the individual parts. NO

track has about 2db of headroom. starts fairly simply, between the bass, countermelodic element/pad, drums, and lead. there's some eventual arp movement added and extra chordal elements, and it then shifts back down to a simpler layout before looping. this is, unfortunately, not really what we do in this community much. we do have a lot of chiptune arrangements! but this is very straightforward, with few changes to the original outside of some very minimal added countermelodic elements. this does not demonstrate transformative arrangement, and is closer to a cover. beyond that, it's only really about 1:11 of music before it loops, and that's nowhere near enough material length-wise to pass our bar. i would encourage you to read our submission standards and review what kind of stuff in general we put on the site. this has some interesting ideas! but it'd need to be fleshed out a lot more and probably would need some post processing to make it less grating in the lead before it'd be something that we'd consider. NO

hey, just a side note to a point mentioned in the writeup - i know some of us judges are more available than others, but we're always willing to talk further if you've got questions about why something landed the way it did. just message us and we'll be happy to help. most of the time =) i'm also going to be honest and say i don't like my previous vote much. i was not clear about what needed to be done and that's on me. i had some specific suggestions that i didn't write down for whatever reason and that's not good enough from me. opening run through the chord progression is a lot better on this one, through like 0:47. piano feels good and the saturation feels more comfortable than it did before. drums feel better as well if i'm remembering correctly. 1:09's transition is nice. the kicks here are a little confusing due to where they're falling initially, but when more drum bits come in it's easier to track them. 1:35 has some nice keys licks. i don't remember the vox stuff at 1:59 but i really like it. stylistically that fits really well, although i'd expect more grit on them based on the rest of the instruments. ending is fine imo, i get it based on the style and the old-record vibe that's going on throughout. me being an old head would in general prefer a normal ending of some kind but that's personal preference. this is a great track. it may not be 100% on brand with what you're trying to ape, but it's a straightforward and fun arrangement, showcasing less is more from an instrumental side. thanks for taking the time to rework this. YES

breakdown is highly appreciated. i love the timelessness of the opening sections. it initially sounds like it's going to be in time and then just immediately falls off the rails. it's clearly immediately heavily influenced by vaporwave sensibilities (ＡＥＳＴＨＥＴＩＣＳ) with the tiktok-brain switching of styles and ideas every few seconds. there's some really wild elements to this that are so far afield from the original that i can't imagine how you got there, and i'm so glad you did. combining the sound design with some of the traditional music theory techniques (like the diminution of the rhythm at 0:58, or the tapestop effects straight out of 1950s french musique concrete at 1:14) is just so fun. the breadth of innovation here is impressive. i just hope the acid wasn't too expensive. YES

the opening plucks were a little exposed, but i got what you were going for at 0:14 with the panflute and choir. it sounds really blown out though - there's definitely some distortion in my ears around a lot of this first section. i found the melody in this earlier section to be difficult to follow as well since there's no breaks, just constant flowing through lines. 1:07's a break, but it's quickly back to mostly similar textures. we do get some rhythm at 1:19 which is helpful to keep it moving forward. this section is also more reminiscent of an Enya melodic line. there's a note at 1:43 that doesn't fit. 1:58 is a somewhat new texture, with some new instrumentation, but again it feels overly dense and hard to pick out elements. the flute drops at 3:04 and the shift in texture is nice after what's mostly been a monoculture up until now. 3:34's backing arpeggios sound really neat, but there's consistently sour notes in the transitions between chords. i like the snare percussive elements. it trucks along, does the same sour note at 4:32 that was at 1:43, and then it's done. i'm apparently missing something because i don't hear metroid hardly at all in this. either it's very transformed and i'm looking past it, or it's only used in backing elements. overall i really didn't care for the vibe that this one lays out. there's a really dense cluster of instruments in the low mids that really conflicted against each other, and the heavy reverb - which i get why you used, thematically it's really fitting! - made for a soundscape where a lot of resonant stuff lived. there's definitely some distortion to my ears in the first minute or so. beyond that, i found the realization of the melodic material difficult to follow. part of this is due to it just wheedling onward with no breaks or transitional points to hold onto, and part of that is due to the very smooth and rhythmless backing elements. for this to get a passing grade from me, there'd need to be a cleaner backing texture for most of the piece with no distortion from effects layering on each other, and there'd need to be a rework of what's going on with the melodic material. i really wasn't able to follow it much at all, and from a general song form perspective there wasn't much to hang your hat on there. NO

track starts off with some sfx and some beautifully-realized harp work. if anything i wish there wasn't sfx so i could hear the tone of the harp clearer. there's some celli under it too as a pad. what a moving realization. the initial presentation of the melody is heavy on the lower strings but when it moves up higher, it really pops out of the texture. the 'storm' section starts at 1:33 and it's appropriately intense. the cello work after the storm, at 1:56 onward, is just superb. i am not an emotional listener but i truly got chills at the tight harmonic lines. i get caught writing too much sometimes. this doesn't need it. you've crafted a beautiful rendition of a great example of why EoS is one of the best pokemon soundtracks front to back. please write more arrangements of game music using this level of arranging, performing, and recording skill. YES

i wrote a bunch in the resub version of this essentially saying to trim back a lot - the tail of the reverb, the extended sections of mostly repeated material, etc. the writeup details changes that hit all the things i said, so i'm excited to hear the result. opens with some open fifths in a tight synth, the bass line, and some melodic references. beat is tight. there's a pad in the background that sounds a lot like reverb tail but isn't, and once i figured that out i think the melodic elements sound less out of place. beat gets spicier at 1:01 with the xylophone added alongside. melodic content is still focused on that first lick of the melody, but it works because there's a variety of ways you present it. 1:50 is a break, and this is a good time for it. the lead appears to be mostly in the right ear which is a little confusing, and it's pretty fuzzy so it took me a second to understand what it was saying. the ep in the background sounds like it's doing sustains which doesn't really add much other than pad noise - consider a sharper tone around that particular entry to make it clearer what it's doing. 2:31 is a downtempo section and i like the reduced instrumentation here. the 16th-note rhythmic element is nice too. would have been a good time to mix up the lead for the remainder of the track. this trucks through the melodic material a few more times until 3:26 when we get what's clearly an outro section. the pad tone at the end needs a fadeout as it just stops abruptly. overall i have a lot of nitpicks about the track. i think that the arrangement's fine although i'd not have minded hearing more of the melodic material that wasn't the initial riff that is used so much in this track. from a mixing perspective i can hear everything pretty well, and my main complaint is that the panning is a little wide. overall though i think this is over the bar. the changes you've made are in keeping with what we suggested and overall you've got a fun punchy little track that has a nice groove. YES

Previous decisions: original, resub 1 Really appreciated the last round of feedback. Song gets to the point a lot faster, removed 2-3 minutes of trash. Heavily revised the second half: added a bridge and dovetailed some of the elements of the bridge into the final hook. Redid all of the reverb, I think it's at least an improvement. Added a xylophone and some strings. Thanks. Games & Sources Theme of Tikal

# Cover Track Information Title: Until the Very End Arranger: Chromatic Apparatus MixingEngineer: Chromatic Apparatus Performers: Cello: Chromatic Apparatus Harp: Chromatic Apparatus ArrangementNotes: | This arrangement of "On the Beach at Dusk" is meant to mirror the arc of Explorers of Sky in microcosm. The main game starts and ends on the beach, with the tumultuous, emotional moment dividing the two. There are two harps and four cellos (live recordings) performing in this piece with additional sound effects. The opening section (0:00-1:33) takes the original theme and reduces it to the two harps, with the celli providing an occasional bed of sound for the harps to float on. 1:33-1:55 is the storm, with the celli in tremolo and a single harp improvising on the atmosphere. From 1:55 onward the storm abates, the key rises a whole step, and, with buoyed spirits, the celli take their turn with the theme. It starts with a solo cello playing the main motive, and picks up more celli along the way. 2:39, the celli slowly convert to pizzicato (think rain drops), and we end, hearing the ocean surf on the beach. EquipmentNotes: | - Cello - 2007 Romanian "Euro Standard Antique", finished at Peter Paul Prier & Sons - 2xAKG C414 (mid-side configuration) - Harp - RHarp Merlin 35-string Lever Harp - Mono mix of two mics: AKG C414 (exterior mic), Bartlett Cello Mic (taped inside harp) - Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 Gen 3 interface - Mixed in Studio One 6.5.1.96553 - Sound effects (freesound.org) - shore.aif by FranCirujeda | License: Creative Commons 0 - Cloudburst n Thunder 1.wav by chimerical | License: Creative Commons 0 - Thunder Storm Nonstop Thunder by hargissssound | License: Creative Commons 0 Games & Sources # Source Track Information Game: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky ReleaseDate: 2009-04-18 Developer: Chunsoft Publisher: The Pokémon Company / Nintendo SourceAlbum: N/A (no official album exists); In-game Jukebox SourceTrack: Title: On the Beach at Dusk Disc: N/A Track: 4 Composers: - Arata Iiyoshi - Hideki Sakamoto - Keisuke Ito - Ken-ichi Saito - Yoshihiro Maeda Links: - YouTube:

this will need a new name if it passes, as we don't allow remix names that are just the name of the original track. also, given that we don't allow any sampled audio regardless of source from square enix owned games (square enix currently owns the rights to chrono trigger) means that this is a no-go with the given samples. i'll still review it, but we can't post it even if it passes in its current state. opening has some sfx (naughty naughty!) alongside a very thin, airy pad playing the SotF arpeggio. i like the transitional effect into 0:26. the lead here is nice as well, and the beat is appropriately chill. there's a significant amount of pumping (i don't think it's sidechain unless everything except the kick is sidechained) which is notable and doesn't sound great. there's a break that features the Schala arpeggio (and eventually the melodic material when the beat comes back in). there's not much going on in this section that's not from the original track, but some brass stabs come in near the end which keeps it from being a palette swap from the original. it goes through the Schala arpeggio a bit before ending without an ending. i think this would be fairly close if i had to vote on it fo rillz, given the pumping in the limiter and the lack of original content in the second half. short tracks are hard to have enough transformative arrangement to really get themselves over the bar without everything firing on all cylinders. that said, the inclusion of sampled effects makes this a moot point. they'd have to be changed before i could vote in earnest. NO

a sixth version! this family has a lot of sisters. opens with some arpeggiating bass, an EP, and kit. the snare sounds doesn't have much tone to it, it's mostly just static. the melodic content comes in quickly and is handed off between two synths - the latter entry has a lot of really high content frequency-wise and is a bit tough to both listen to and tell what it's doing. there's a short break at 0:33 and it's back to the same synths as before doing the melodic material from before. we hit another break in the beat at 0:58, and there's a stutter hornet synth used as a lead in this quieter section. i don't know if the high-energy vibe that a stuttered saw like this adds fits this section too well. there's a build into 1:23 and then it's back to melodic content. there's more personalization here initially which is nice. 1:47's the same as earlier at 0:33 but with drums this time, and then we get one more recap of the melodic material before there's a big fall. what's left is an outro over some deep pads. the drums specifically sound really lacking. the snare is not only just static, but it also lacks punch which is an important part of an edm track's momentum. better samples are available for free all over the place and would really improve this, as well as increasing the volume of the snare a bit so it sticks out of the mix more. similarly, if there are hats, i can't hear them, and if there are cymbals used as transitional elements, i didn't notice them throughout. lastly the kick has a deep electro beater tone, which can work, but it doesn't have any bass to it that i can hear. a quick freq analysis shows that the bass peaks very highly at 70hz or so and there's just zilch underneath it, either in the bass instrument or the kick. i'd expect to her a fundamental in the 35-40hz range based on that tone, so layering the kick with something that's got more sub bass content (that's trimmed to ensure it doesn't go below that 30-35hz range and clog stuff up) would give it a lot more guts. the stutter synth used throughout as a melodic element really doesn't fit the vibe overall. stutter synths are used in other tracks to drive energy and provide a rhythmic element that's not just the boom tiss of the drums. that's not how this this used - this track has a heavy focus on melodic material, and so while the backing elements work just fine with that stutter tone, the lead doesn't really work in my opinion. a gliding synth that lets you really play with the attack and release elements would fit what you're going for more, i believe. all of your leads are very reverb-heavy, but the bass, drums, and backing synths have very little verb on them. this (along with some of the odder synth choices) serves to make the backing elements feel separate from the lead elements. taming the fade and the tail of the reverb would help a lot in terms of making them feel more adjacent. is your reverb on a send or is it individually applied to leads? a send that you can send everything to to some extent would help normalize the sound stage and make it feel more cohesive. i don't think this is there yet! but you're in it for the long haul, clearly, so hopefully some more focused feedback in this judging thread combined with you interacting with the workshop on the discord or in the forum should help. NO

prophetik note: this is version six, i believe. here's the previous five. v5 v4 v3 v2 v1 Alright, another attempt, and I think I did better this time. I imported a reference track directly into my DAW so I could AB faster. The reference track I used was MkVaff's Vega theme Pulse mix. I chose that file because it has a similar "spanish gypsy" feel to it, IMO. I tightened up the velocities and timings on some of the parts; I had received advice on humanizing, but then was told on the judges' decision that the timing was "scattershot", so I brought things to a more on grid state. I also added some very slight panning to the call and response parts in the first half. I added a "mud removing" eq to each individual track, and also eliminated the rather aggressive compression I had on my instrument busses. Instead, I put a multi band compressor with gentle attack and knee on the master, and it's only doing about 1 to 3 db gain reduction per band, before going to a lookahead limiter that's also only doing between 1 to 3 db (depending on where you are in the track). I eschewed using Ozone, and instead went totally by ear with the reference track. Again, thanks for the consideration, and thanks for your patience;) Audiomancer Games & Sources Original Above.

This remix simply titled "Secret of the Forest" is a mashup of Secret of the Forest and Schala's theme from Chrono Trigger! I had a lot of fun making this one and decided to go with a trap/wave style for the remix. Hope you like it ~ This remix was released on my EP "Whisper Tree" in 2020: Games & Sources The intro of this song also samples sounds from the game files including menu buttons, various in-game fx and the opening clock ticking sound!

opening is sfx. guitars are highly stereo separated when they come in, it's a bit distracting especially in the right ear. when the drums come in they're playing fun stuff, but they sound extremely notched into the soundscape so it's hard to hear the kick especially. the bass is the only thing in that freq range, and a glance at the spectrum analyzer confirms that in general the bass presence is way higher than i'd expect. cymbals also are pretty bright and cut through a lot. what the drums are playing is dope however. rhythmic elements in the arrangement come in at 1:30, and we get what is kind of a chorus at 1:47. 2:31 definitely sounds like a castlevania remix all of a sudden - the galloping guitars and fast drums are just straight out of 2003 OCR for me, so that's super fun, especially when we get the arpeggiated bloody tears-esque line at 2:58. the arrangement blows through some reprise material and then is done. this is a fun track! the mixing is bass-lite overall - looks like the big peak for the bass is in the 60-100hz area, and there's a surprising amount of sub-40hz content that i couldn't hear but was apparently clogging up some of the soundscape. the piece also overall just doesn't have a ton of dynamic contrast, but consistently changing up the beat and what's going on in the backing parts really helps keep it moving forward. the arrangement itself is fun and i enjoy how it continues to weave elements together as the track goes on. i think this is a great example of each of your unique talents. YES

this appears to be fifteen and a half minutes of the original audio from the games stitched together. unfortunately this isn't what we host at this website - we host arrangements of the original material, not clips of the originals mashed up. take a look at section 4.2 of the submission standards to see what kind of material we generally accept. NO