Chimpazilla Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 (edited) Contact Information: ReMixer name: ladyWildfire, SuperiorX real name: Elizabeth Carter, Matt Keller email address: , website: https://soundcloud.com/ladywildfire, https://soundcloud.com/superiorx/ userid: 11659, 28286 Submission Information: Name of games arranged: Sonic Chaos (Game Gear), Sonic 3 Name of arrangement: Dance of a Dying Sea Name of individual songs arranged: Aqua Planet Zone, Death Egg Zone, (including cameos of Aquatic Ruin Zone, Metropolis Zone) Comments: After a long couple months in the SZRC, I made it to the final round (5) with a song I was sick and tired of by round 2. The goal of the SZRC 2014 was for me to break out of my stereotypical genre and experiment musically. In this, I attempted writing in a chill, low-key atmosphere, with a beat that was not 4-on-the-floor. SuperiorX volunteered to perform a solo for the song since he was unable to continue on in the competition, and together we worked in elements of the top 4 source tunes while giving most of the focus to Aqua Planet while using Death Egg as the rhythmic elements. I intentionally choose these obscure and under-appreciated source tunes because they're often extremely creative and interesting. Edited April 14, 2015 by Palpable closed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 I like the chill vibe that is established right away, and I like the drum groove but the drums are not well balanced, the hats or shaker is loud enough but I can barely hear the kick. When the melody drops at 0:35, that lead is straight-up terrible, I'm so sorry to be that harsh, but the timbre sounds like a placeholder while you did the writing, and you forgot to replace it with something nice. It sounds like the "initialize" preset on a synth, with no effects or modulation at all, it is expressionless and dry. The lead at 1:15 is silky and gorgeous and the writing is fabulous. The lead that begins at 2:09 is better than the first lead, but I'm not sure the morphing nature of this sound is working here, for this type of writing, and it is mixed too quietly. The writing here sounds just the same as the first lead part. As the track goes on, that cool drum groove really never changes much, neither does the backing chord progression, and the padding sounds the same all the way through, leaving the track feeling repetitive despite the multiple lead solos. I feel like the soundscape needs more variation, even just for a small section, to break it up, and the first and third lead sound need to be improved. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 This suffers from a lot of the same issues that I've commented on with some of your previous tracks... To get the biggest offender out of the way, that first lead synth is just really bad, no point in beating around the bush. That's not working for me at all The second lead synth is pretty great actually, and the third one is a pretty fun retro-sounding patch but it's mixed very quietly. It doesn't feel like a lead to me with the way it's sitting in the mix. Structurally, I'm not really sure what this track is doing. The backing bass pattern and chords are static throughout the entire track. The drums are pretty much on autopilot, and are so buried in the mix that they don't really give any indication of song structure. The bass is mixed quite loudly, so it drowns out any variation that you might have written into the drums and backing elements. Mixing-wise, this is not where it needs to be, unfortunately. Your lead volumes are all over the place, and the bass is crowding out pretty much everything else. As a judge, I hate to come across this blunt in my votes, but after voting on a couple of your SZRC tracks, I really think you need to take more time to polish and refine your competition tracks. Simply put, I don't feel like they're getting the TLC they need during the short time you have to create them. There's some solid ideas tucked away in here but I'm consistently hearing the same problems in nearly all of your submissions lately with regards to mixing, lead synth choices, and lack of structural definition/variation :-\ Competitions are a great way to come up with full-fledged songs in a short time frame, and it's easier to let production issues slide in that kind of environment, but this needs a lot of fine-tuning and revising to pass OCR's bar. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted April 14, 2015 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Can't disagree with what's been said about the lead at 0:35: doesn't not work. A thin lead can do the trick sometimes, especially if you load on effects, or it's used in a song that is sparse, but here it it's too thin and dry given the lush bg. Second lead was awesome. The third lead is probably a better choice to replace the first lead if you want to use a thin lead to contrast the second lead. Apart from that lead, I liked the instrumentation. Chill vibe, and the drums suit it. The mixing is not good enough though. Drums need to be heavier on the bottom, bass needs to be quieter. Third lead was too quiet in the mix. I did like the pad, that seemed to be sitting pretty well, and was a cool way to end the song. The other problem was that the bg instrumentation is way too static. Add some more substantial change-ups rather than removing just one layer for a new section. The lead writing is pretty cool so if you can improve the bg writing so that it's on the same level, I think this has a chance to pass. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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