*NO* Legend of Zelda 'Fortitude'

Hello,

My name is LindsayAnne Pepper (formerly Klemm), and I currently have a song posted on ocremix as "A Fate PreOrdained." I have a new song that I would like to submit to you for your approval. It is called "Fortitude," and is a rendition of both Zelda and Link's theme. It is meant to portray Zelda's farewell to Link as he heads off to war.

I hope you enjoy it!

Sincerely,

LindsayAnne Pepper

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zelda's Lullaby -

Zelda Main Theme -

Kakariko Village -

Song of Healing -

Well this is soft and lovely, but I think there isn't enough source use. (I haven't done a breakdown but I can if needed) In between the motifs, there is an awful lot of empty-ish space, the chords seem to drag on forever. The strings have an unnatural attack. Most of the track is extremely quiet. Maybe this is a matter of taste but this song really drags for me, at least until the brass swell at 5:06. I don't think I can get behind this one, but I will consider what the other judges have to say.

I looked up LindsayAnne's posted mix, it was posted in 2004 and the production sounds exactly the same as this track.

NO

Wow, this takes me back a bit. I remember having LindsayAnne's previous Zelda mix on my playlist quite a long time. I mentioned this on a recent sub, but I love seeing artists from the bygone OCR era return with new material.

This definitely reminds me of the style of her previous track. I'm gonna go ahead and do a rough breakdown:

:00 - :59 original

1:00 - 1:18 Zelda's Lullaby

1:19 - 1:23 original

1:24 - 1:34 Zelda's Lullaby

1:35 - 1:48 original (at a stretch, sounds a bit like the last part of Lullaby, but not enough for me to count)

1:49 - 1:56 Main Theme

1:57 - 2:08 original

2:09 - 2:23 Main Theme

2:24 - 3:53 original (I couldn't hear any source in this extended section)

3:54 - 4:10 Zelda Lullaby subtly on harp (or whatever it is; it's so quiet is hard to tell)

4:11 - 4:34 original

4:35 - 5:38 Main Theme

5:39 - 6:44 original (very loose interpretation on Main Theme in part of this, but not enough to count IMO)

Pulling out my Liontamer® stopwatch, that totals 150 seconds of source out of 404 total, or 37.1%. Unfortunately, this falls pretty significantly below the 50% mark, which is approximately what we're looking for minimum. Someone please feel free to correct me on my count, but I'm pretty confident I caught everything.

In general, things take quite some time to develop and materialize behind the slow moving string chords (consistent with her previous track). Samples are a bit of a mixed bag, but for the most part they do the job. The orch chimes in particular stood out as sounding out of place in the mix. Also, towards the end during the climactic section, the horn sequencing sounded a bit messy.

In general, this is pretty quiet and often there isn't a ton of distinction between the various parts, which gives it a muddy/washed-out sound. I wouldn't disqualify this one on production grounds, but there is room for improvement. Still, with so little source referenced in the piece, I'm afraid I have to go with

NO resubmit, please

I think the main problem here apart from the source not being as prominent as it should be, is that everything goes on a bit long without a lot happening. Because we don't get any kind of leads or soloing happening, we're really just waiting for something to happen most of the way through. I think the track could benefit from more elements being introduced over time (build up to more than what we have here), and I think if we can get to the action quicker we'd be in for some success. The song really "starts" for me around the 4 minute mark. I'd almost suggest starting the song at that point, going into the soft section you have there, and then building up to something else and closing us out. That'd make things a lot more interesting. It'd also mean you'd have a lot of your source usage covered (which as mentioned is the other thing letting this down), as you'd have a lot of the source filled bits left behind.

Instrument wise things sound nice, strings could do with a little more work (tiny articulations) to make them feel a bit more real. It'd also add some variation. Production wise the mix is a bit quiet. As an orchestral piece I wouldn't be reaching for the compression, just lifting the volume of the lot would work.

Overall this does need some work. I would like to hear a resub of this track with some of the above mentioned ideas explored.

NO (please resub)

First things first, the burden of elaborating on the arrangement and how the source tunes are used in the piece is entirely up to the artist. Try as we might, we can't necessarily divine how & where everything is used here, so unless you explicitly list things out in an arrangement that's a medley or has a lot of song tradeoffs, you run the risk of the judge underselling how much source material is incorporated into the arrangement, which is exactly what happened here.

That said, I gave it my best shot, noticed some subtle things that were overlooked, and even then I can't come up with the source tunes occupying the majority of the arrangement.

For the Zelda source material to be dominant in the arrangement, I needed to hear it in use for at least 202 seconds of a 6:44-long piece. Here's what I could identify (thanks to Nutritious for the starting point of his breakdown):

:08.5-:20.5 - Kakariko Village (Ocarina of Time)

1:00-1:18.5 - Zelda's Lullaby

1:24.5-1:34.75 - Zelda's Lullaby

1:48.75-1:56 - Main Theme

2:07.75-2:23.75 - Main Theme (with Zelda's Lullaby in background)

3:19-3:28 - Song of Healing (Majora's Mask)

3:53.5-4:08.5 - Zelda Lullaby, very quiet

4:09.75-4:19.75 - Main Theme

4:30.75-4:32 - a couple of notes from Zelda's Lullaby in passing

4:35-5:42.75 - Main Theme

5:50.5-5:56.5 - Main Theme on brass

5:56.5-6:02.75 - Zelda's Lullaby very quietly on bells

6:12-6:21.75 - Main Theme quietly on strings

189 seconds or 46.78% overt source usage

There very well could be more Ocarina of Time theme cameos I'm missing or something like that, but because you didn't clarify, I don't know for sure whether it's there or not. For your own sake, and our sanity), you've gotta spell it out.

If we've made a mistake and not identified all of the Zelda theme usage, let us know, LindsayAnne. Otherwise, this needs more of it. Also, some of the usage I pointed out that Nutritious didn't was so quiet, that it's almost not noticeable; perhaps some of those theme cameos could be a little louder/more present without disturbing the overall balance of the instruments very much.

As far as the composition, Chimpa mentioned this dragging out a bit, and I can see where she's coming from, but I didn't get that vibe myself. The tempo's deliberate, and that's cool with me. On the production side, I agree there's not too much difference/refinement between this vs. 2004, but like Nutritious, I think this production quality's at an acceptable enough level for OCR, without reservation. That said, the critiques about the string & brass sequencing/realism were on point, just not enough to ask for a resubmission on those grounds.

Jive mentioned possibly re-tooling the writing for more dynamic contrast. You're welcome to take the suggestions in whatever way you see fit, but they're merely suggestions, in case that wasn't clear. IMO, the dynamics are subtle, but observable, so I didn't have any problems there. Dynamics come in all shapes and sizes.

The main kicker for me was not enough identifiable source usage, and I felt everything else (composition/production) was over the line, issues aside. Incorporating more Zelda material into the piece (or merely identifying enough to push the usage over 50%) would make it a pass for me. Definitely don't be discouraged, LindsayAnne. It's awesome to have you back in the community and active making music again, and I know we have more to look forward to, even if this one isn't resubbed.

NO (resubmit)