*NO* Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 'The Tragic Formerly Known as Prince'

[djpretzel]

Hey DJP (and/or Judges)

Mitch from Rosencrantz & guildensterN here. The time has finally come that we created another remix. More will be comming to. But anyway, we just finished a remix of "Tragic Prince" from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night"... Here's all the important info -

ReMixer name - Rosencrantz & guildensterN
real name - Mitch Wells and Nate Pedersen
email address - Meatandmymonkey@hotmail.com
Remix title - "The Tragic Formerly Known as Prince"
Original song title - "The Tragic Prince" - From The Castlevania SOTN OST

I'm going to assume that someone is curious what happened to us for the last 2 years or so. Well the short skinny of it is that we teamed up with a vocalist and tried to make a band that could play live, while at the same time re-recording Rosencrantz & guildensterN original music. The band fell apart after the recording was done, so after a 2 year break, Me and Nate went back to recording under the name Rosencrantz & guildensterN.

Story behind the remix:

We actually started this remix quite some time ago, probabally about a year and a half ago, and just recently picked up where we left off and finshed it. We picked SOTN, because there was no real "remix" from that game yet (just a nice piano arrangement and a song that used samples from the game), and because we like a challange. Everyone knows it has great music, so the idea of remixing a game that noone else wanted to touch because the music was already regarded as "perfect" or was extremely complex musically, was something we wanted to try. We had this idea of a sort of "duel" between various genres of music. First comes out a garage rock kind of version, which is interrupted by a (even more so than the original) hair metal interpretation. They play off each other for a while, and then get interrupted by a 70's psychedelic/electronic conception. Then they all kinda have fun toward the end. At the end is a little snippet of the DDR song "paranoia", is a subtle hint toward things to come. ;)

oh yeah and one kinda interesting fact about this song is that (like all our previous songs) we didn't use any midi files anywhere. Everything you hear is either a live insturment, or original programming.

but enough of my rattling on. Go listen to it and see for yourself. Thanks for your time, and keep on remixin'.

thats manly talk!

Mitch

[danny B]

I'll delude myself and assume that by "nice piano arrangement" from SotN, you're referring to the Dracula's Castle theme in my "Belmont Lounge". Delusion.

Anyways,

No issues with the guitar playing here. However, nearly everything else raises issues with me. The John Cage-esque intro with the radios is a nice touch, but it sets the stage for a gimmicky mix. Beyond the crazy noises and ambience, there isn't much substance here.

The entire mix is flat and overcompressed. The whole track has some mastering issues I would consider major. It also suffers from several instrumentation problems.

Drums - The kick has no meat. The snare sounds like it's from an old Protricity mix ;). The cymbal work is haphazard and messy.

Synths - The synth work often reaches piercing frequencies and overall feels like an obligatory inclusion to make the mix seem electronic. Most of the synthetic textures simply come off as confusing rather than innovative.

Guitar - Like I said, no major qualms here, but the recording quality isn't very good. It may be intentional to achieve a lo-fi effect, but it comes off as sloppy. Excellent lead playing, though.

Overall, I'm not feeling the whole distorted-for-the-sake-of-distortion thing. The mix definately has its own sound, and there's no lack of originality here. However, the haphazard percussion, downright ineffective use of gimmicky samples, sloppy production and confusing synthwork doesn't make me happy.

NO

-D

[Protricity]

yea, the compression on this song is absolutely terrible. This kinda compression should be used maybe at one point for effect, but definately not throughout the whole song. That singlehandedly ruined the song.

I'm hearing a great deal of key issues. Constantly the bass drops out completely, like at 1:40 and up. Stuff like 3:05 is just totally off. All over.

Lots of ... simply terrible sections like 2:20.

Not even sure what you were trying for here save general chaos and lack of structure.

Eh, just NO

[Liontamer]

Yeah, I remember KyleJCrb requested for me to play this on VGF once it came out, and I turned it down due to how ridiculously overcompressed this is. Crunchy the whole way, with no high-end whatsoever. Danny B absolutely laid out the problems on this one. Production is grating/shrill/terrible and this needs more rearrangement compared to the source tune. It would be a more servicable offering if you guys just toned this down and refined the sounds.

NO

[The wingless]

So compressed... it has given me the Bends.

Everybody else has laid out its problems. But I'd like to push for a resubmit, factoring all the criticisms doled out thus far. Beyond the post-modern-hewn trappings and the blackhole compression, there's some pretty tricked-out coolness going on, and it would be ashame to not have that coolness refined and posted.

No