Gario Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Remixer Name: Faseeh, Tiago Rodrigues Real Name: Faseehudeen, Tiago Rodrigues Email address: Website: https://soundcloud.com/gottagofas, http://www.tiagomcrodrigues.com/ User ID: 30380 Game arranged: Undertale Name of arrangement: Chaos, Cookies and Cider Name of individual song: Spider Dance Sorry for the double email, disregard the last one, I actually forgot to attach the MP3 file, haha. My bad! Undertale, a game I dearly love and has made me cry and laugh at the same time. Beautiful masterpiece. The music especially blew my mind. Couldn't help but arrange this track. When I played the game, I probably died at least 9 times on this boss. Toby agrees it's one of the hardest, and I guess that inspired me to go for this chaotic rendition. The energy in Drum and Bass is great, but Rock N Bass is even better. Tiago is an amazing guitarist, and he totally delivered on this track, through his guitar solos. Glad to have collaborated with him! Imagine this whole track as an interactive video game music track. The introduction represents the encounter, the attacks switch every time the track changes section, Muffet's pet comes out for the guitar solo, and the breakdown is the part where you're genuinely sweating and are scared to death. Genuinely hope you enjoy this track! Thank you. (also genuinely hope the judges accepting this on my first time submitting please hahaha) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 I've been waiting for a good, high-energy remix of Spider Dance, and this is... well, almost it. The arrangement is great, I love the guitar work and the narrative progression. What I don't love is the pumping surrounding that kick. The intro (0:10-0:29) is the worst, but throughout the rest of the remix as well, all the synths duck each time the kick hits. It's a really strong, striking, and distracting effect, so severe that to me it's a dealbreaker. It sounds like there are some crowding issues as well. For instance, at 1:04-1:14, I can just barely hear a synth playing a sort of call-and-response to the guitar, but it's buried by the other instruments, including the percussion. The tom is especially problematic--for a percussion element, it's eating up a lot of your frequency space. I'm not a fan of that ending, either. Odd choice to end at that point in the source's loop, at an anticlimactic part, when there are so many more natural places you could have chosen, or just change the last two or three notes to end on the tonic. More of a climax would have been even better, but even a small change here could be a vast improvement. I'd love to see this revised and resubmitted with the compression improved and the instruments separated out more. I think the fixes that need to be made are fairly small considering the strengths of this arrangement, so please do send it back in! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted March 15, 2017 Author Share Posted March 15, 2017 Considering the style, the pumping from the kick didn't bother me as much. The correct instruments duck, while leaving others (like the guitar) alone, which gives the drums more presence. I could see it being a little less pronounced, but I don't think it's a deal breaker, here. The soundscape at 1:04 is indeed crowded, but the drums, bass and guitar are the important elements in there, and they're easy to hear. Would be nice if the backing synths were easier to hear, but it's not the end of the world if those are lost in favor of those aforementioned instruments. There's a lot of energy in this - the guitar work is great, and the background drums are filled to the brim with hats, snare and all sorts of knick knacks that makes for a rich sounding drumline. Pretty cruel to leave us hanging on that ending, though - it's begging for a cadence to end it all that you simply don't deliver on. That's just mean. Ending and small crowding aside, I think this is a pretty good track. I love the Spider Dance source, and I enjoyed the style you went with for it. Nice work! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 I'm with Gario here. I can hear the ducking, and while I wouldn't mind it being adjusted, I don't think it's a dealbreaker in the long run. The crowding at 1:04 is a similar scenario, and even with the two issues put together I'm still fine giving this a pass. Really nice guitar work here, and the energy is on point. Nice work, and good luck with the rest of the vote. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 The sidechain is just too much. On the other hand, the arrangement is pretty awesome. But the heavy sidechain permeates the entirety of the track and is just distracting as hell. This kind of heavy sidechaining works in some EDM genres because it's mostly used on stuff with little melodic content, so actual melodies aren't being obscured, but the beginning of chords, arpeggios and the like are, which creates a neat groove effect. I don't think that has the same effect here, and this just sounds like no care was put listening to what the sidechain was actually doing to the music. The release is too long, the ratio of compression is too high. You can get away with much smaller values for these parameters and still make your drums come through clearly, which is the whole point. Specially since in a modern dnb track your drums are short and snappy anyways. The track is also very compressed, you can clearly hear the overly long compression release tail in action at 2:08, the difference in volume is VERY noticeable and distracting, as well as when it kicks back at 2:19. Not very natural sounding. Sidechain rants aside, like I said, the arrangement is pretty solid, the guitar performance is a highlight. I found the hat sequence to get somewhat intelligible at some points which caused it to create this scratchy effect over the beat that sounds mostly like just noise and not actual instruments. I enjoyed the changes throughout the track, the piano break, the switch to the shuffled rhythm, all good stuff. I will be voting NO on this one for now but I will listen again on my best setup and see if things are as bad on the production side as I'm hearing now.NO (for now) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 As soon as the beats started from :11-:29, it felt like the beats were pumping and causing the levels of the leads to be constantly duck; frankly, it sounded pretty annoying and didn't sound stylized. The ducking's not as pronounced and thus not as big of a deal for most the rest of the track. The initial breakbeats from :32-:52 were a bit of an awkward fit only because that sampled pattern is so generic and stuck out as not really feeling like it was written for the arrangement; I don't mean to make it sound like a bigger deal than it was, just something that hit me having heard that pattern a lot before. Wasn't digging the beats, which picked up more for the :53-1:13; they just sound hollow like hitting a plastic bucket and don't fill out the soundscape well, yet too loud and upfront compared to the other instrumentation. Nice drops at 1:13 & 2:08, creating some good contrast after the (great) guitar work and the breakbeats before that, respectively. Swanky stuff from 2:19-2:40 with the jazzier synth work and claps, then shifting over to another rock section. The little note accents behind the guitar from 3:01-3:11 got buried when the writing there would really complimented the guitar; why bother having it there if it's not going to register? I 100% get the criticisms on the ducking, but for me it was only a notable deal from :11-:29 & (to a lesser extent) 3:11-3:30 and, at least for me, didn't hugely strike me as a dealbreaker on my headphones. Overall, the arrangement was creative, varied and dynamic, and doesn't need to be touched. I wasn't blown away by the percussion, and felt like the production was thinner/emptier than it should have been, but the arrangement carries it. I'd love to hear an improved version before we posted it, but I'm OK with this passing as is. If it doesn't make it as is, Faseeh, just tighten up the mixing with some of the feedback in mind and we can definitely get this up in some form. YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted May 29, 2017 Share Posted May 29, 2017 Punchy. Things start off relatively minimal but hard hitting. The contrast of instruments you have here are complementary and work well. The side chaining/pump is quite intense across the mix, parts that don't need to pulse are mostly left alone which is good, but the hard hitting nature of the effect brings on ear fatigue quickly. Lead at 1:40 is a little tiny compared to the drums and could've done with being louder. In contrast the following section which is more mellow has good balance. The guitar solo to initiate the end sequence was a good touch. The lead synth at the end should've been left outside of the sidechaining, it made that part sound like it had master compression issues, but it didn't last long. The end note wasn't the greatest of choices, and it felt abrupt. Otherwise I found the arrangement mostly decent. Above quirks aside, the excessive side-chaining is the biggest problem for me, however I don't think it's completely deal breaking, but that is not to say that the mix wouldn't benefit from that being relaxed. Let's see where this goes. YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted July 17, 2017 Share Posted July 17, 2017 Great arrangement, and very interesting mixture of sounds and styles. I like the chippy sounds and sine bells mixed with the growls and also organic elements, and I like the swing breakdown section at 2:19. I see the complaints about the sidechaining. If this were my track I would probably replace the kick with something that hits a bit harder but with less of a tail, more smack and less boom. Also I would sidechain elements in varying amounts so it doesn't sound like the entire track is ducking to the kick with the same intensity. I would sidechain the bass at 2:1, 12ish db of GR with fast attack but with a much faster release than you have here (which may be due to the length of your kick tail), pads/backing about 6db GR, leads 3db etc. Regardless, I do deeply dig this track. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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