*NO* Jazz Jackrabbit 'Tubelectrical Guitar'

[Chimpazilla]

ReMixer Name: UKDaza

Real Name: Darrell Harden

Email Address: 

Website: https://soundcloud.com/ukdaza

Userid: ukdaza

Name of game arranged: Jazz Jackrabbit 2

Name of arrangement: Tubelectrical Guitar

Name of individual song arranged: Tubelectric

Comments about the mix: This remix comes from a game I just recently rediscovered in my gaming collection. I remember the music in this game being pretty good, so I decided to listen to the soundtrack which brought back a flood of memories. I chose to remix this song in particular, as i thought it would mesh well with rock-ish sounding instruments. I also thought it would be cool to improve a bit over it with my guitar.

 

Edited September 29, 2015 by Liontamer
closed decision

[DarkeSword]

This isn't Jazz Jackrabbit 2, this is from the first Jazz Jackrabbit game. Played this a lot as a kid.

 

Inclined to say NO here. Guitar playing is competent but this feels like a straight up cover of the original with some good guitar noodling. The bell synth REALLY isn't working at all for the syncopated accompaniment. The guitar is just playing over a bed of sonic mush. Things get worse when the string stabs come in.

 

You gotta take this back to the drawing board. Guitar sounds fine, but everything else needs a lot of work.

 

NO

[DragonAvenger]

I definitely feel like the background of the mix sounds pretty muddy. The sounds are kinda mushing together, and it feels like there is a lack of definition throughout. Definitely look into cleaning up the parts, panning and balancing as well as using note velocities to humanize those backing instruments.

The guitar playing is pretty good, and the soloing fits the style of the track, but I do agree with Shariq that there needs to be a little more substance to what's going on. Maybe having some other instruments take the lead, adding some harmonies or countermelodies, etc., rather than soloing over the source.

The WIP forums could be a good place for you to keep working on this, I encourage you to take the track there to get more feedback.

No (resubmit)

[Chimpazilla]

The bell synth and the pad are both really very generic and simply sequenced.  I'm fine with this being a cover-ish arrangement, and the guitar work is pretty good, but the mix is muddy as heck.  The bass is way too loud and boomy.  The guitar sounds really upfront and dry and doesn't fit into the soundscape well.  Some arrangement variation would be good too, but the guitar solo work makes up for the lack of arrangement ideas.  When the string stabs come in, they are muddy too.  I agree with my fellow judges, take this to the workshop for some mixing advice!

 

NO (resubmit)

[Liontamer]

Agreed with DarkeSword that the guitar work is the best part but not much of this is strong. At 1:14, I then understood what the "sonic mush" criticism was about, because the backing instrumentation became very cluttered, with the bass in particular booming too loudly and creating mud.

The drum writing was serviceable, but there's an overall flat energy here with the plodding percussion & bell pattern repetition that undermines the wilder energy of the guitar. The string stabs were very rigidly timed as well. The overall timing of the beats felt too tight compared to the guitar stuff, and the combination of instrument doesn't click, IMO.

The mixing needed work, but I felt the bland auto-pilot repetition of the source tune ultimately hurt this the most. It's got cool potential, Darrell, but you need to develop and vary the writing under the guitar, not just coast on it.

NO