Gario Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Fxsnowy Adrian Bureu soundcloud.com/fxsnowy 25684 Super Mario Bros 3 Through the Clouds Underwater theme Athletic theme My original idea was a fun upbeat version of the underwater theme. I experimented with transitioning to the athletic theme and liked how it sounded. I used some FM synths, an 80's lead, an 808 and a bit of Latin percussion. Enjoy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted June 6, 2017 Author Share Posted June 6, 2017 Huh, well this is an unexpected approach. Very spacious, but it isn't too empty for my ears, and the production is very warm and mellow. If I wanted to chill to Mario 3, this would be a great way to do that. The samples in this are pretty lo-fi. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it DOES sound like a souped up Genesis track... which I guess is pretty interesting for a Mario game. The synths are generic, but I think they work in producing a particularly warm, delicate sound overall. That ending is pretty weaksauce. I like the instruments dropping out as it approached the end, but then it just... ends. Dropping the drums on that last chord would've helped considerably in making that ending more definitive - you had the right idea in how to approach it, but you didn't drop enough instruments to make that sound like the final pass over that phrase. It's no dealbreaker, but I did feel it necessary to point that out. It's a strange approach to the sources, but it's not bad by any objective measure. I could see this as a fun, quirky addition to the site. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 This is pretty fun! The staccato approach to the theme makes this really bouncy, and at the same time the rest of the soundscape is super chill. Overall this felt very much like a Sonic track; maybe if they had done a crossover game back in the day this is what it would sound like. I wonder how a sonic track would be adapted to the Mario universe, now. I agree that the ending does sound a little weak overall, though it doesn't end up being a dealbreaker. Parts are clear and the arrangement is short but sweet. This is fun! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 I'm not as enthused as my colleagues and the issues they described bother me more. I'm not feeling the samples here. To me their low-fi nature doesn't sound like a deliberate, aesthetic decision but just vanilla sound design. It doesn't sound like a Genesis track at all to me; only a few of the synths sound like they could have come out of the YM2612. It reminds me more of PC games from the early '90's or so--in other words, like a really primitive MIDI. That's not a good thing. If I'd run into this "in the wild," I'd have guessed it was literally an SMB3 remix made in the days before OC ReMix even existed, and wouldn't be surprised to find it on vgmusic.com. That ending really is pretty disappointing, completely anticlimactic. It very much feels like you just ran out of ideas, and just repeated the last section a few times while dropping instruments out. I'm sorry, but I for one can't get behind this sound design. It would have been a reasonable addition to the site in its earliest days, but I think we've moved well beyond this now. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted June 19, 2017 Share Posted June 19, 2017 Interesting choice of sounds. I quite enjoyed the old groove box style beats and low fi instruments, it was a fairly original direction considering the soundtrack has seen a fair share of remixes. Mixing between parts is mostly good, although some parts share a bit too much frequency space at times, which for a minimalist track like this, could have been more separated. Initially progression is solid, with a nice rhythmic progression between sections that absolutely helped in keeping interest, and was a clever way for adding variation over adding more and more layers. I will say that due to the minimalistic approach, by the midway point things felt a bit samey and repetitive. Thankfully, the solo portion at 2:10 saves this portion and makes things feel different for the second half, which was a saving moment for me for this track. The ending is definitely abrupt, I feel this was a missed opportunity to really break things down and do something interesting to close the track off. Overall I don't have any major problems with this. You've managed to create something quite original around a small number of sounds, I just wish there was a bit more variation across the piece. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 Some small issues with this one for me: the hats can get a bit too dominant making them sizzle too much and making the high frequencies a bit annoying. Some of the sounds are quirky and I'm ok with that, but others are pretty vanilla and a bit static. The bit at 2:18 didn't feel very natural, and ended up sounding more like an error in the performance than intended. The ending is abrupt and unfulfilling. There are some great things in this one though. The interpretation was very original and there are lots of neat arrangement sprinkled throughout. Things like that bit at 2:28 are some of the detailing that made this piece feel pretty unique. I think this sounds very oldschool-ocr, which isn't a bad thing to be, just that it feels very quirky and basic regarding production, and not completely whole or without issues, but packs a charming arrangement. It may feel a bit weird put between all the modern, very developed modern remixes we get nowadays, but I think there's a lot to enjoy here and the small issues it packs don't bring the whole thing down below the bar for me, though it is indeed close. YES (Borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 Chiming in late because I love SMB3's soundtrack. Sweet arrangement and combination of these themes; while it's melodically conservative, the textures are expanded and nothing like the originals. I thought the highs during some portions of this were abrasive (e.g. 1:15-1:30); it wasn't quite enough to hold this back as is, but it'd be nice to get that touched up, since that also pulled back the strength of my vote some. The sound design was pretty basic, but there were lots of little sonic tidbits going on that showed the writing wasn't lazy or unsophisticated. Also, the soundscape was spacious and reasonably filled out, so I though Adrian made good use of the instrumentation he chose; it's all about the execution. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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