ReMix: Castlevania 'Wicked Six'

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The primary issue with newcomer Sixto Sounds' ReMix of Castlevania's Wicked Child is that, on the scales of production and arrangement, it's a bit lopsided towards the former. There's definitely a slick, produced rock/metal vibe going on, with punch on the geets and drums and solid integration of organ and other keys for the timbral variety angle, and I think the overall sound has the type of energy with musical control that a lot of people should dig. However, the judges were unanimous in citing similiarity to the source material as the dominant concern, and in true largely-symbolic-Vice-Presidential style, I stepped in to tiebreak, after a fashion. It wasn't an easy call, but there were several important factors to consider: when we talk about arrangement, as stated before, that can take the form of genre-shifting, tempo-shifting, instrumentation, altering the original melody/rhythm/etc., adding new stuffs - the list goes on. The operative question was whether there was enough here to constitute arrangement that could be weighed in combination with the contrastingly solid production to meet our standards. There's plenty of people out there who think we should just post whatever sounds good, and I can understand that perspective, even if I don't share it; they're free to say what they will of our process, policies, and panel. I feel like all three have been working fairly well, however. So, back on track: when I considered the drum track, which refactors the original rhythm into something more appropriate for rock, the minimal-but-still-important changes made to the lead melody to optimize it for electric guitar, and most importantly the last minute or so, which does eventually get around to adding some soloing and original bits in, I agreed with the majority of the panel that this was an example of a mix that, lopsided though it may be, could be posted. SS could have made all our lives easier had some of the soloing been dispersed more evenly throughout the song, and a couple more conspicuous changes made to avoid following the original structure for so long. But he didn't, we were left with a judgment call, and we made it. My guess is that many won't care how the mix got evaluated and will simply be happy to download it, some others will feel that the panel should have been stricter, some looser, and that perhaps (?) a handful might see the inherent difficulty in these types of calls and be thankful there's people willing to spend hours discussing them ;) That's a whole lot of rambling from me, and Jesse managed to get straight to the point in a couple sentences, so here's the reader's digest version:

"the arrangement is somewhat straightforward, but the instrumentation is very cleverly thought-out, making it sound like more than a cover. would be on the line due to the conservative arrangement if not for the solos, which push it over the edge. what can i say? those solos werent in the original."

Pretty much. Apologies to Sixto for littering this writeup with judging esoterica, but it was key in why the mix took a bit longer to post, and key to how we look at mixes of this nature in general, so I thought it was pertinent. All you really need to know, in the end, in addition to what Jesse said, is that this is a kickin' rock/metal ReMix of Wicked Child, an already-badass original, that Sixto Sounds has added some serious beef to, and even thrown in a small helping of tatos, precious (PO-TA-TOS). So, regardless of the context, this is some fun shredding and verve-tastic Castlevania work from Sixto.

― djpretzel