Chimpazilla Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Hello, I'm submitting our track from Vampire Variations III, an arrangement of Dracula's Theme (the intro BGM). The files, artist notes and other info should be available to you already on the album data, right? The track didn't seem to pass the album evaluation. Regarding the written comments I've seen, I disagree about source usage and harmony problems, so I thought I'd panel this. Here's a timestamped source usage walkthrough, source here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRRmYBDn8xw 0:00-0:10 - the intro of the source (0:00-0:26) was basically reduced to the bassline G-C-H-D-A#-H. Played by the guitar, there's a few additional chords to accommodate the upcoming clarinet melody. The chords progress twice as fast as in the source. 0:11-0:22 Guitar and bass play the intro chord progression. The clarinet melody is combined from the lead lines at the beginning of the arpy part (0:36-0:47), and the final section of the source (1:39-2:06) - the notes are very long sustains in the source, and they have been time compressed into a more mobile melody. 0:22-0:24 The five note descending guitar is taken from a bit from the main arpeggio that plays at 0:47 and then repeats at 0:50. 0:22-0:26 No relation to source. 0:27-0:30 The sirens are meant to reference 0:26-0:34 from source, with siren-like sounds (one ascending, one descending) 0:30-0:32 The five note descend. 0:33-0:41 The guitar groove that begins here is closely based on the main arp; the rhythm is changed into a syncopated rock groove. The "main arp part" or the middle part of the source is played three times, as in the source. The source has some variation that makes the overall form of the arp hard to pick out (at least, did for me), the guitar arp arrangement mainly follows the first pass. The bassline also includes bits of the arp. The harmony problems cited in the album submission were from the guitar part, if I understood correctly. Every note in the guitar part should be the same pitches as the source's arpeggio, and the same goes for strings/soprano melody later; basically the harmony/mode/scale etc should be the same as the source. 0:41-0:51 The clarinet plays the 0:36-0:47 four note line from source. 0:51-1:03 Original writing to continue the clarinet part. (Guitar still playing the main arp). 1:03-1:08 Original 1:09-1:38 The arp is dropped for the second iteration of the main part (well, bass still plays some of it); strings play the melody (0:53-1:16). Guitar plays chords & another guitar wails a bit on the background. 1:38-2:09 The third iteration of the middle part of the source; pretty much simply includes both the arp & the melody (utilizing the soprano lead from Sam Dillard's Dracula Battle arrangement from the same album). Some variation on the guitars. 2:09-2:48 Guitar solo time. This is based on the final part of the source (1:38-2:06); the long sustained line is played by the clarinet. The guitar solo *does* reference some of the arp, but you have to listen pretty closely. I tried to base the bassline on the arpeggio as well. 2:48-3:20 The clarinet plays the same two bits of melody as in the intro (0:11-0:22). 3:21-end The clarinet keeps playing those two bits of melody; the guitar and bass follow the intro chord structure as in the intro. 3:46-3:54 Jorito did some nice composing-by-editing, that deviates from the chord structure a bit, and the clarinet melody by one note. cheers, --Eino Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted June 10, 2016 Author Share Posted June 10, 2016 The source tune is nebulous and has ugly harmonies, but it works in context of a spooky track in a Castlevania game. The remix also is nebulous and has ugly harmonies, but it works a lot less well with this instrumentation. Whoa, at 0:11 I'm already pretty turned off. I think I hear enough source in there, but honestly I'm not sure it even matters. This remix does not channel the source at all imo. At 2:09 there's a particularly bad harmony happening. The guitar solo is good though. The clarinet solo is also good, but wow is that section sparse. At 3:54, it just sounds like a sonic and harmonic mess. I think I get the point you're trying to make with this track, and it's possible I am being less objective than I should be on the track, but I just honestly am not feeling this one at all. NO Eino Keskitalo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 Kris and I sorta co-reviewed this, so her vote falls pretty much in line with my opinions on this track. I'll add a couple more comments, I think my issues with this remix stem mostly from the way its delivered, it has sort of a hard/classic rock approach but the delivery of the riffs feels lazy and there are some ugly harmonies that work in the context of the original but really don't work in this adaptation. Kris already mentioned some key points, but I'll also add that the clarinet performance at the start sticks out as something that doesn't quite belong there, and the performance couldn't be more flat. The solo clarinet section, as sparse as it was, was the one I enjoyed the most as it felt coherent. That is, until the guitar hits again at 03:20 and the clashing harmonies come back with a vengeance. 04:10 and on the entire mix starts to fall apart, I know you're trying to convey a feeling of disarray or desperation but it ends up feeling very messy, it needed more of an organized disorder approach, imo. Regarding the source usage, as Kris pointed out it seems fairly liberal, even with the references you offer there are some sections that are hard to justify what they are supposed to represent such as the section with the sirens. I would love to hear other Js opinions on this one as this track kind of puzzles me because the delivery doesn't seem to be working at all for me. NO Eino Keskitalo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 Oh boy, I remember this track from the album review I did months ago. Seeing that you disagree'd with my evaluation the first time, I'll elaborate for you what I meant with my commentary. Since this is the same track as before, my vote will likely remain the same, but it's not fair to leave it at that without explaining why. On the first portion, I legitimately missed the source, and I apologize for it. 0:00 - 0:11 indeed does play the source at double time, but it does so without the clusters that define the chords. Sounds like you're setting up for a punk-style rendition of this source, which would've been pretty neat. You repeat the same thing from before in the guitar with the clarinet over it, but it's not the chord progression you're repeating, but rather a solo line of music - the chord progression was the clusters that you left out earlier, That's fine, but the clarinet does not line up with the guitar at all (opening with the intervals octave-tritone-m9th / M6th / octave-m3rd-tritone... etc.). There's little context that could make these series of intervals musically work due to the large amount of leaping involved, outside of a non-tonal piece, and even then the music would need to be developed specifically for these intervals to make sense. If you want to combine the source like this, you need to make them musically work, as they simply don't make musical sense, as they are. Moving forward, I recognize the guitar arps, and the clarinet is an obvious reference to the source. The bass completely messes up the whole sense of what's happening in the source, though - the solid bass was designed to act as a grounding reference that the other instruments were playing against, so it makes sense. You forego it in this arrangement, which makes the arpeggio and theme sound like a clashing mess of sound. The clarinet is also mixed way below the guitar, so it becomes difficult to hear. I'd argue that the clarinet at 0:51 - 1:03 actually has enough reference to the source to be considered source, still - oddly enough I don't agree that it's original writing. The strings at 1:10 really sound quiet, and while they carry the theme they're really lost behind the other instruments. Those strings could also use some humanization, as well, as they sound pretty mechanical. There's no vibrato, the attack swells for every attack (which they do in the SNES source, as well, but that's because of limited resources), and there's no volume variation that phrases the lines well. The strings could really use some humanization. I actually like the groove in this part, but the mix doesn't seem to be very well balanced - the arpeggios and strums dominate, and the theme carrying instruments seem mixed in the background. It gets more interesting as more instruments come in, but the mixing really isn't focused on the important elements, so it loses the listeners. The clarinet part works pretty well at 2:48 - the balance is nice, and the connection to the source is clean and easy to recognize. It's why the other judges like that part - it's clean and balanced. It gets pretty chaotic as everything else comes in, but if the rest of the track was well focused and balanced I could see that working as a sort of everything-comes-in-and-wrecks-your-face part. Slayer loved to do that. The biggest issue that this has, as I mentioned before, is the mixing and balance of the piece. The arpeggios and rhythm guitars should not be mixed to the front in lieu of the theme-carrying instruments. Most of this could still work with the proper mixing balance, but the beginning portion (0:22-1:10) loses what made it work in the source by having a moving bass. That static bass was absolutely critical in the source for making it work musically - without it, it makes no harmonic or melodic sense. The portion before that (0:11-0:22) would need to be rewritten in a way that utilized better line writing and/or follows more sensible harmonies, as that part simply doesn't work, as it's written. The playing wasn't bad, though, and there are certainly a lot of interesting things that are happening in this track (2:48 - end is pretty sweet, for example). Upon a second listen, I still say that this one doesn't pass, but in understanding it better I can tell you more specifically what might help make your vision make more sense for the audience. Hopefully some of my specifics on why many parts don't work musically helps you refine this in a way that works for everyone. NO timaeus222 and Eino Keskitalo 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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