Rainbow at Journey's End (Kirby's Adventure Orchestral Medley)

[Eladar]

Hey all -

This is "Rainbow at Journey's End", an orchestral medley of four songs from the NES Kirby's Adventure OST. My goal was to take some of my favorite tracks and mix them together to tell the story of the game's final areas and events. I also wanted to give the remix a majestic and grandiose vibe, similar to Smash Bros. Melee's "Fountain of Dreams". The tracks I included from Kirby's Adventure are as follows: Rainbow Resort, Orange Ocean World Map, Fountain of Dreams, and the Ending Theme.

Looking for any and all thoughts on the remix, though in particular I'd like feedback on the mixing, levels, and mastering. Does the song seem to have the right overall volume and good dynamic range? Do instruments stand out as well as they should - are they panned well at appropriate volumes and not stepping on one another's toes? Is there a good distribution of bass/mid/treble? I would call it a complete first draft at this point, in the sense that it has a full arrangement and start/middle/end, but I'm open to adding and subtracting sections as needed.

Thanks for listening, and let me know what you think!

[Chernabogue]

This is nice -- it even has a Kingdom Hearts feeling to it.

In terms of arrangement, this is quite good, I like how you incorporated the various themes. The mix doesn't sound repetitive and clearly has different sections that sound different.

What could use more a little more work is the humanization (playing on volumes, velocities, etc.) even if it's already interesting. Sample quality could use some better samples as well (is this Garritan Personal Orchestra?). Maybe you can ask someone on the Workshop/R&C forums to help you on that -- just a suggestion.

This definitively heads in a good way! Try asking a Mod for more detailed feedback -- keep up the good work.

[Sam Dillard]

I think it sounds pretty good as it is, I do agree a bit with Chernabogue, but what I would say is since that main string part carries the melody quite a lot, I would beef it up with maybe some more strings or some woodwinds playing in tandem to make it a bit more powerful,

-Sam

[Eladar]

Thanks for the feedback guys, very much appreciate it! Glad to hear you're liking the arrangement overall.

On 4/22/2016 at 1:57 AM, Chernabogue said:

What could use more a little more work is the humanization (playing on volumes, velocities, etc.) even if it's already interesting. Sample quality could use some better samples as well (is this Garritan Personal Orchestra?).

Yeah, I was curious if this might be the case. This mix primarily uses the Kontakt 4/5 factory libraries, and for the most part I've thought they sounded good, but it seems some of that stock instrument quality is showing through. In certain cases I did use other VSTs where I felt Kontakt's libraries were lacking: the solo violin parts are on NI Session Strings, and EWQL Symphonic Orchestra is being used for the trumpet ensemble (because the Kontakt libraries and NI Session Horns were disappointing me with their higher brass). I've only started using EWQL SO recently, in fact I picked it up in the middle of working on this remix, so perhaps I'll try moving more of the song over to SO and see how well it addresses the sample quality. It has a lot more expression modes than anything I've used before, so that might help me improve on the humanization too (especially with the violin).

And Sam, that's a good suggestion, I'll try adding some extra instruments to some of the string-focused sections to bolster the main melodies.