Gario Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Contact InformationReMixer Name - DarkEcoEmail Address - YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGbDe6JrqPLoUIS9A7UbcMgSubmission Information Name of game(s) arranged - Lemmings Name of arrangement - 'Extinction Party' Name of individual song(s) arranged - 'Miners and Climbers Disco' System - Megadrive/Genesis Source material - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13dpyKI3dHgComments This is my first ever submission to OCR that i actually made almost a year ago but didn't feel confident enough to submit. After eventually posting it publicly it was receiving generally positive feedback from the kind folks on the OCR facebook group, which made me consider that i was being too hard on myself. The track itself was what i'd call a "crisis of genre". On one end i'm heavily inspired by rock music like Joe Satriani, Pink Floyd, early DreamTheater and Porcupine Tree. On the other end i'm a lover of electronic music like Infected Mushroom, Zircon and Oribital. On top of all that i love VGM and get comments from friends that everything i write (which isn't that much) sounds like it should be in a game. So i'm stuck loving genres that are at opposite ends of the music spectrum and fusing these into a sound that i want to be my own involved a lot of tricky decisions that i'm still plagued by, mainly being the drum sound above everything else. Should it be electronic or acoustic drums? Will it sound too inconsistent to my overall genre if i switch between the two? I'm sure i'm not the only one who's been in this situation. I settled on having a punchy electronic kick with acoustic snare and overheads, but i still don't feel happy with it overall. The main thing i decided before i started writing any game remixes was that i wanted my remixes to keep the spirit of the track but enhance it in ways that weren't possible when it was made. I'm sure somebody could make a killer smooth jazz rearrangement of this track, but to me that would sound too far from home. It needed to sound fun and upbeat, and fun was really my main goal. I made heavy use of Image-Lines 'Gross Beat' to spice things up. All the gating and tape stop effects on the guitar are coming from that. The entire solo near the end has been put through Gross Beat to make it more snappy and to the beat. I'm not the tightest of players so it helped fix my timing too. As a guitarist i felt like i wanted to try new things that i never hear on a guitar. The standard rock sound bores me more then ever these days, so what if i pretended the guitar was any other electronic sound? It's something i am exploring even more now after writing this track. This was very Infected Mushroom inspired. If you listen to their album 'The Legend of the Black Shawarma' it makes frequent use of gated, stuttering guitars. The breakdown at 2:03 was quite Pink Floyd and Sonic CD (US) inspired. You can probably hear the obvious Zircon inspiration during the section that starts at 1:19. I'm a huge fan of his delayed sine sounds and really wanted to give it a try myself. His music is actually the reason i persued any kind of music production myself, so i'd like to thank him for that as it was a potentially life changing choice for me. After grabbing my own copy of FL Studio it started snowballing. This mix was created using FL Studio but i've now moved on to using Presonus Studio One and i'm very happy with the switch. Truth is i'm a lazy writer if given the chance and the pattern system of FL encouraged too much copy/pasting. The workflow for audio recording didn't vibe with me either. From here i'm hoping to continue contributing to OCR and already have a couple more mixes that are about 50% finished. 'Extinction Party' will probably be quite different to anything i produce in the future as i'm heading down a more electronic rock route than a dance oriented one. As for how long it will take to finish these i can't say as i'm currently working on a degree in Sound Design at University, but i'm very excited with the progress on them so far! Peace & Love, DarkEco x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 Oh hey, I remember this from the FB page - I came in and gave some feedback on it (something like a few paragraphs of feedback, lol). I said it there, and I'll say it again here: this takes a real 'kitchen sink' approach to the track, throwing everything you got at it. There's some rock guitar in there, gated synths, guitar and synth leads, atypical special effects... If you like music, you'll find something to like here. The production sounds pretty good, and the arrangement certainly has enough source in it. If there's something that I think could be improved in the future, the track does stick with the same harmonic pattern throughout most of the track. While I certainly couldn't say the texture gets stale, the harmonies do get old. It's also an issue with the source, so it's understandable, but it's an issue nonetheless. The mixing is actually really good, considering how much you have going on here, but there are still some moments (such as at 4:00) where your lead gets drown by all of the other instruments playing at once. You do a pretty good job with the mix considering how dense the track is at times, but it could be better still. Aside from that, I've got to say this is a pretty sweet piece. The energy is great, and it knows how to hold back for dramatic effect, as well. The production is pretty solid, to boot - definitely something I'd like to see on OCR. I hope you make good on your promise to send more! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 I'd say it gets overly busy in more than a few places, occasionally triggering some slight overcompression, but otherwise this is pretty fantastic stuff. Lots of cool, creative, entertaining stuff going on here--it's never comes across as random, but still manages to keep tossing out the surprises. For a dance-ish sort of track, I didn't think the harmonies were overused at all. I'm looking forward to seeing more from you, too! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 This is definitely a pretty successful and really fun mix of two genres. The beats are definitley snappy and I enjoyed the overall energy of the mix. I do agree at times it feels like there might be too much going on, but overall I didn't find it to be such and issue that it was worth revisiting. Gario has a good point on the harmonies going on a lot, but again not a big issue in the long run, just something to consider in the future. Nice work, hope to hear more from you! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 The source tune was referenced pretty clearly throughout this, even just with the guitar chugs, so there was no need to timestamp it. I thought the opening synths at :08 sounded generic, BUT were produced in a way to give them depth and fullness, so nice work there. The soundscape felt a little lo-fi (no big deal) and the beat pattern first used at :50 being so plain and plodding was a negative. No big issue here either, as I liked the energy of the electric guitar, but felt it was too loud vs. the other elements; luckily, the synth writing cut through to the foreground enough to be heard, though the mixing could have been tweaked. Aside from the drum writing being underwhelming, the rest of the track was creatively developed and the part-writing was full and distinct enough to be appreciated. Fun energy! Lemmings is now the first game on OCR to be repped on 4 different platforms. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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