[djpretzel]

Remixer: Vurez
Website: www.vurez.com

Remix Info:
Game: Ninja Gaiden

This is a remix of the mine music from the first Ninja Gaiden on the NES. And since this is a mine remix, I used a good amount of reverb and delay in some parts (well, I pretty much always use quite a bit of reverb and delay but at least it fits better in this case).

[Liontamer]

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ninja_ga.zip - Track 9 [NES version]
http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ngt.rsn - "Mine" (ngt-120.spc) [SNES version]

Good stuff with this one. Played it back on VGF59, and knew it would be here relatively soon. Some of the steel-string guitar plucks really get up there in volume. Scale it back. Bah.

Anyway, Don had another nice mix, this time a bit more conservative but certainly not without its personal flair and charm, and plenty of expanded instrumentation ideas. Everything was stylish and varied as far as the arrangement went, and there's not really any question about that.

Dunno if DarkeSword will feel that this mix was also plagued with the punchiness of "Flurry of Frozen Fury", but in any case I had no doubts that I liked this, though the production work wasn't as solid as it was in Flurry. The mixing became an issue during some of the fuller parts, most notably the last little bit from 3:49-4:04; the volume was excessive and the sounds cluttered together a bit. Something to work on in the future. Keep 'em coming!

YES

[Sam Ascher-Weiss]

Wah Wah stuff at 3:00 and 3:49 doubling melody is precious. I had no problems with the mixing in that last section. All the instruments were playing a different interpretation of the same melody so I think they were meant to sort of blend into eachother and it works!

Bass and percussion hold down the air tight groove which allow other things to float on top like the pan flutes and melodic guitar parts. Sections flow seamlessly into one another. A good example is at 1:57 when the pan flute is the star player. At 2:05 the guitar shows up to comment and then assumes control at 2:12 but before we have a chance to miss the momentum created by the pan flute, the drums come in at 2:16 to compensate. That's how transitions are done!!!! This type of stuff is all over the place. I have no objections so I got's to say

YES

[Harmony]

Yeah buddy, this has a great organic, Latin, New Mexico mesa vibe. From the acoustic bass to the classical guitar and pan flute this tune is sailing straight for a YES.

There are a few stumbling blocks however. Most notably is the desperate need for compression of the guitar parts. The volume jumps all over the place in many unwarranted spots (e.g. 1:16, 3:13); in a word it’s “punchy.” With guitar it’s an especially easy problem to fix since the dynamics are as much a result of the timber of the notes as they are a product of the volume, thus you don’t need to worry as much about over-compression killing a dynamic solo for example. All-in-all, compression would give this piece a much more polished feel. Ah but this is discussion for what will hopefully be one of Zircon’s next ReMixing Tips tutorials on mastering.

Another issue is the reverb, which although it may be thematically appropriate still doesn’t give it permission to wash some of your sounds out. The first two minutes were quite nice having a very airy feel but when the percussion entered at 2:14 I was ready for more instrument distinction; a change of texture. To your credit Don, clutter was avoided and reverbed or not the elements remained clear enough and certainly enjoyable.

The arrangement, straightforward as it is, is very slick as the style of this mix meshes very nicely with the original.

Good stuff but work on the relatively minor mastering problem for your future mixes. It can only make your creations sound even better.

YES

[zyko]

hmm

the reason it sounds "punchy" is because he drenched the whole thing in reverb and not so much the lack of compression - for one, this isn't a performed guitar so the compression would be useless in this case so the punchiness is clearly intended. the wah is very reminiscent of my auto-wah; bam. i dig the vibe a lot

the arrangement is fantastic - the transitions are all very well-thought out. this is like ninja gaiden meets gerudo valley so while its extremely cliche in that respect, it still does it seamlessly and with enough panache to serve several arrangements over. the guitar parts are very well written and are loads of fun to listen to even if they aren't real

YES