*NO* Nintendo Land 'Evening Hope'

[djpretzel]

Contact Information

• Remixer Name: Noah Sanchez
• My name: Noah Sanchez
• Email address: 
• Website: noahsanchez.wordpress.com
  https://soundcloud.com/ptto911/
• Userid: 30214

Submission Information

• Name of game(s) arranged: Nintendo Land
• Name of arrangement: Evening Hope
• Name of individual song(s) arranged: Evening (from Balloon Trip Breeze)
• Comments:
• After the passing of late Nintendo president, as many were, I was distraught. Having also recently gone through other emotional losses, while I was putting together my release of the complete Nintendo Land Soundtrack, this scene from the game really stuck with me. It was one of the most beautiful and emotional songs and scenes in the game, in my opinion. This remix naturally appeared in my mind, and was a result of my emotional state at the time. It felt good to release these emotions of loss, appreciation, and hope for the future, through music.
  The arrangement solely uses the original theme, as well as original writing to complement it. It has a soothing tempo and orchestral tone, with light drums and guitar driving the song through to completion, and fading away.
  I truly hope you enjoy it!

Link to the file:

Edited July 24, 2016 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Sir_NutS]

Original song: 

Weird selection of source, as this song in Nintendo Land is a remix of Balloon fight's bonus round theme.

Usually the issue with remixing sources that are short jingles like this one is that it's very hard to build up a cohesive song that doesn't feel too repetitive.  Sadly, I feel like you didn't avoid this, as this song is way too long to just survive on the same riffs and motifs that are around 15 seconds long.  You did try to build around these, adding little variations and harmonies, or backing strings playing the base progression, but the repetitiveness of the base themes is just too much for the listener to handle for 6 whole minutes.  Fadeout endings aren't something I like at all either.

The production is so-so.  It feels muddy at times, and it was a bit odd to start with such a heavy beat but have much simpler drum sequences for the majority of the song. The mix gets really cluttered on the fuller sections and the overcompression hits these sections very hard as well.  The sections where the strings start showing up is a good example, as the entire track ducks at the start of every measure, giving off a very weird effect in the amplitude dynamics.  

I think this song needs to be severely trimmed to work.  Trimmed by at least half, if you're going to keep the original motifs so ever-present.  You can keep the long running time but in order to do that you would need to just ditch the repetition and bring up new original sections that don't rely on the same riffs.  Even then I would still suggest to trim the track, it's going to be naturally easier to adapt a very short jingle to an average-duration song.  The production will need work as well, as the mix needs clarity and cluttering/overcompression issues need to go.

NO

[Gario]

May Hiroshi rest in peace. It affected everyone who grew up with the Nintendo, so it's appreciated to hear what others have offered up in his honor. Picking a source from Nintendoland is a good choice for honoring the man himself. While the source is short, I could see it being expanded in such a way that it could fill three minutes or so without getting too repetitive. Filling out six is a bit overambitious, for reasons that Sir_nutS point out.

In fact, there's very little to add to what Sir_nutS said - the reliance on repeating the source does not carry the track, the fadeout ending does nothing to close the song out and the overcompression in the production is overpowering. Sir_nutS does as good a job as I could in detailing that out, so I will defer to him on those points.

The one other issue to bring up is the use of your more realistic samples - they need some humanization TLC. The strings are all set at the same dynamic level, and the attack on the sample swells every single note, which is something a performer would never do. When incorporating 'real' samples, making it sound realistic is always a consideration.

Glad to hear people doing what they can to honor Hiroshi's passing, but for OCR's purposes this needs some work before this can pass. Pay attention to the levels of repetition in the arrangement and mask the source better, from time to time, in order to make the arrangement feel fresh (and consider cutting the length so it's easier to keep it interesting throughout). Take a look at your mixing levels and make sure that you don't overcompress your track. Humanize your stringed instrument better, and give the track a more solid ending. I suggest posting this in the workshop forums - the people there would very likely help you out, and they may have other useful things to suggest for the track, as well.

NO

[Chimpazilla]

Not much to add to what the two gentlemen above had said.  Sir_NutS nailed this vote imo.  The length of the track is much too long to support this many iterations of the same short source.  The mixing is low-heavy and does get muddy here and there.  I recommend putting a high pass on every instrument (as well as reverbs and delays) to make sure the lows aren't overlapping with the bass at all below 200Hz.  The track sounds overcompressed, but I think you'll have much more headroom after you high pass everything but the bass.  Wow, this track is long.  I agree it should be cut by half, keeping a smaller portion of each unique section, but also changing up the writing at some point.  I also don't like fadeouts, it feels like such a copout, especially following such a long and repetitive track.  I agree with Mike that it is odd to start with the heavier beat and then never revisit that beat, it makes the arrangement dynamics even flatter.  I recommend adding a drumless portion somewhere, followed by the original faster beat, preferably near the end prior to a proper outro.  Lots of work to do here still.

NO