[djpretzel]

DJpretzel- This is Select Start's rendition of Kraid's Hideout from Metroid:

My name is Steven Shulmister; I am the Manager of Select Start. Their homepage is:
http://plaza.ufl.edu/wuli32
Please make this site available to those who are downloading this file from your site.
~Steven

__________________________________________________ _______________
Check out the coupons and bargains on MSN Offers!
http://shopping.msn.com/softcontent/...spx?scmId=1418

[The wingless]

IT"S AN OLD-FASHIONED HO DOWN AT KRAID"S PLACE! YEEHAWWWW!

Hey, somebody took a risk. One hell of a beautiful risk. It already scores brownie points for being daring. But as we all know, being daring and being musically sound (pardon the pun) are two wildly different things. Fortunately, this rendition is... remarkably soulful, I suppose is the term I'm reaching for. Reminds me vaguely of the Manson Orchestral tracks I've come across in my travels. I love the way the strings seem to wail and moan during some of the latter passages. Extraordinarily nice samples. I will steal them from Select Start, and their power shall be added to my own.

Lovely.

YES

[Protricity]

The whole 1:00 part has really poor key attention. Very messy.

Violins don't sound real at all. Lots of repeating. Original melody is followed pretty much exactly save for some poor chords. More repeating.

Please have more attention to keys and dont use high quality samples to carry a song. EDIT: Perhaps the strings are real after all. THey dont sound real. Anyway, that was not the reason I gave it a

NO

[The wingless]

I spent all that time writing Yowza... and you countered it... made me look like a bitch and everything.

[Protricity]

Couldn't let you outdo me with your fancy linguistics.

[Disco Dan]

Those... may not be samples, Prot. Sounds pretty damn real to me. There is LOTS of variation on the attack and articulation. And the bad tuning is usually an indication of real instruments. Anyway, I like it for the same reasons that Mr. Wingless likes it. And it's not note for note. It varies in sections like the one that starts around 2:15. Yeah, these are either as high-quality samples as one can get, or they're real strings. My bet's on real strings. I'm giving it a YES even WITH the bad tuning because it almost adds to the creepiness of it all.

Wait, let me reiterate:

YES

D

P.S. Those are definitely real strings, Ari. Swallow your damn pride.

[Disco Dan]

One look at their site reveals they are a performance ensemble, not one guy with his computer.

D

[Protricity]

Meh.

Listen at 3:38 to 3:49. You can hear the individual samples.

Eh, their website has pictures of kids holding violins. So I"ll just take their word for it. Strings are real.

[GrayLightning]

My first impression is it sounded fairly real. Also you can hear ambient and recording noise. It was a possibility they put it there for authenticity, but it does look and sound like real performers. I've never heard samples sound like this anyway.

There's a lot of high frequencies here and they sound really sharp sometimes. I would have liked to have heard more arrangement, but it's passable.

Nice work, YES

[Israfel]

Yep- definitely real. It's a neat trick though for real violins to not "sound real at all."

Couple things:
as has been noted, the playing is horribly out of tune at times- whether or not this enhances the atmosphere is up to the listener I suppose. I would prefer an in-tune version...

Somewhat simplistic arrangement- but it gets more interesting as the mix progresses

Has a few annoying performance flubs, but at the end of the day it's a decently satisfying gothic and subdued take on Kraid's Hideout (that depends perhaps too much on atmosphere to mask its technical deficiencies). Enjoyment of the work will likely depend on one's tolerance for less than professional playing- a few more takes would have greatly benefitted this mix.

YES