Gario Posted February 3, 2017 Share Posted February 3, 2017 (edited) Hello OCRemix Team, my name is Patrick, aka SpreadFire, and I'm a hobby-musician who likes to play around with electronic music. I'm also a huge Metroid fan, and that is why I decided to make and submit to you a Remix of my favourite song of the franchise due to its 30th Anniversary. The song itself was completely made by me. I also go by the Metroid-related username of Black Falcon on forums and on Youtube, but SpreadFire is my music artist name to be used here. Song description: Biosphere is a more eletronic approach to Super Metroid's original Green Brinstar Theme. While staying mostly true to the original arrangement, slight adjustments were made to enhance the atmosphere and rythm of the song. Song is in 192kbit/s Mp3 and 3 minutes 24 seconds in length. I also attached the cover artwork I made for the song. I sincerely hope you enjoy listening to it as I enjoyed making it! Looking forward to your decision. : Edited April 20, 2017 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted February 3, 2017 Author Share Posted February 3, 2017 Did I need to attach the artwork? Nope! Did I attach it anyway? Yup! EDIT: Alright, I guess I gotta vote on this too, so here we go. Ah, one of my favorite sources from one of my favorite games, and the arrangement is handled pretty solidly. As MW mentioned, the copy pasting is pretty minimal (to the point where I don't notice it, really), and while it follows the structure pretty conservatively there's more than enough interpretation in the instrumentation to consider this the artist's interpretation. I'm not sold on the production of this, though - it just sounds overly crowded throughout the track. The upper EQ range is thoroughly saturated throughout the track (really sounds like a lot of 'hissing' throughout), and overall the balancing act of keeping important elements to the front doesn't seem to be in play here. The bass at 0:30 and 1:13, for example, just shoots to the front of the mix, leaving the melody behind it (further obscured by the sidechaining, no less). Even the texture at 2:31 has more prominence at this point - the balance just isn't clicking on any cylinders, here. I understand the theme in this source isn't as dynamic as the texture, but one of the reasons the texture is as cool to listen to as it is would be because it's playing against such a strong, slow theme. If the theme is downplayed as it is here and relegated to the background then all of those textures sound repetitive and nonsensical (as the ear is catching them as the supposed melody of the track). The balance is working at odds with you, on this. The stereo spread on this is pretty excessive on the mid/higher EQ end of the track. A little stereo spread is good to give your bass space (as you did here), but too much makes the whole track sound hollowed out and thinner than normal. Lower the spread a bit to give a more even sound throughout. I like it, but I'm not feeling it yet. Rebalance the mix, balance the spread and work on fixing the crowding on the upper EQ range. I can see this being a great mix for OCR, but I think it needs a bit more TLC on the production end of things. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted February 3, 2017 Share Posted February 3, 2017 I'm not at all sure what was meant by "enhance the atmosphere," since this arrangement transforms the original atmosphere entirely, and it's not what I'd call "atmospheric" at all anymore. Maybe if this is supposed to represent Green Brinstar in the distant future after it's been built over with technology, a feeling subtly reinforced by the ducking on the strings/pad. It's an interesting take, especially with the syncopation added in--took me a while to get used to that, but it's grown on me. Not much to criticize here. It's hardly "true to the original arrangement" at all--not only is it laid out differently, but the instrumentation and balance change it completely. Production is pretty clean; the kicks are a little punchier than I'd like but are perfectly appropriate for the genre, and the unusual balance in places is clearly an artistic decision that worked well. There's a tiny bit of copy-paste (0:45-1:00 and 2:31-2:46), but 15 seconds is hardly worth mentioning, especially considering the context. Nice work overall. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 Cool, this is one of my favorite themes from the soundtrack (I need to remember to remix this someday myself) Regarding your remix: I'm afraid I'll have to side with Gario on this one. The main issue here is the mix, as it feels very crowded throughout the track, and the sounds lack clarity. I think the amount of ambience or perhaps reverb from the pads/textures and melody lines is contributing to the lack of clarity and focus, as the bass synths seem clear for the most part. Feels like everything is fighting for space here. I think that the mix follows the original's structure very closely, though the arrangement/adaptation are far enough apart to make it different. So although my issue with this mix is mostly with the mix balance, is a big enough one to ask for another pass. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Yeah, gonna throw my vote in here with Gario as well. The track has some really nice adaptation, and I really like the overall sound structure you have going on here, but there is just too much clutter going on where it becomes hard to focus on the main parts of the mix. Similarly, the main melody has been put way into the backburner while the backing parts are been brought up to the forefront. This can work in it's own way, but I don't think how it is handled here provides the direction and structure to drive the mix in the same way. I think a rebalance would go a long ways here. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 Not much to add to the NO votes above. The arrangement has solid connection to the original, and though it follows generally the same structure, has a lot in the way of added elements, modulations, and additional writing. I really like the synth work, the beat has a lot of good energy. There are plenty of varied parts, breakdowns, etc to keep the listener engaged with the piece. The only real complaint for me (as the others) is the mixing. There's a lot of fighting for space here, especially in the louder sections. I'll try to breakdown some specifics here: -Off the bat, the vocal pads sound a bit too loud, which sounds like it contributes to clutter when the beat kicks in. -:31 Bass synths are taking a lot of space in the low end, which sounds like it's competing with the bass-heavy kick. The backing pads are also very loud. You may be able to get away with this with side-chaining between kick and bass/pads, which would probably sound awesome, actually. -1:45 while not cluttered, the plucky bass synth just sounds arbitrarily loud and in your face. It really marginalizes the other elements in the following section(s) because of this. This continues on for until 2:30. I'll also mention that 2:32 sounds like a rehash of :46 without anything different until leading up to the transition at 3:00. It's not a big deal, but wouldn't mind hearing something to differentiate the two sections better. Minor nitpick: ending fadeout of the sfx sounded a bit too quick. Could let it stretch a bit longer if you wanted. Fixing up the mixing would make this a pass for me, but consider the side-chain idea to see if you like what pops out. It's a great track, keep at it :). NO resubmit, please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 On 2/3/2017 at 4:31 PM, MindWanderer said: Production is pretty clean... Not often I WTF something, but... what??? Nooooo, you've got that all wrong. Production-wise, this is dead on arrival. Wow, really muddy vox to open it up. When the groove arrived at :30, the soundscape was just a lot of mud. There are lines used from 1:00-1:14 and 1:46-2:15 during chorus sections that are barely audible; they're mixed in a way where they didn't register enough. From 1:22-1:43, that beat pattern is so sizzly. I can't go into everything, but other judges covered the production issues in detail and I'm not a musician, so I leave it to their expertise. The other Js have touched on the production changes that would need to be made to take some of the high-end sizzle off of this. Arrangement-wise, the rhythmic changes were good, and this energy went well in the right direction of interpretation we're looking for; nice work there. If you're able to clean up the mixing on this, then you'd be in business. Good base her, Patrick; you don't need to alter the arrangement, so see how much you can clean this mixing up. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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