[djpretzel]

Contact Info
ReMixer name: ambient
Real name: Alex Gventsadze

Email address: dnbient@yahoo.com


ReMix Info
Name of game(s) ReMixed: Chrono Trigger
Name of individual song(s) ReMixed: Undersea Palace theme
Hey ya'll!

Sending in another remix, which is very different from the last one I submitted. Hope you like it!

ambient

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[DarkeSword]

Nice.

I remember when you showed this to me on IRC. This reminds me SOOOooo much of AE's stuff. Lots of thick, wild synthy shit. Awesome texture, awesome arrangement. Drums are win.

I wish the synth guitar lead wasn't so fakey though. It'd be nice to get a live one in there.

Either way, it's not a deal-breaker.

YES

[zircon]

I've been following this since it's inception and giving my own advice on it throughout, so it's cool to hear it in its final form. I really like the soundscape overall, and the drumwork + synths are particularly good. Lots of effects going on all over the place to spice it up. The guitar was made a lot more fluid since the last time I had heard it, and though the "chugs" could be better, I can't fault the ReMixer's samples.

The arrangement is good overall. Nice intro, ending, original material - if I had to pick one beef it would be the transition section at 1:27-1:55, which has some notes/chords that don't sit too well with me, but that's basically it.

Great mix with no substantial flaws. Easy;

YES

[Liontamer]

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Undersea Palace" (ct-3-08.spc)

Some of the stuff in the intro certainly got trebly and could have been toned down, but I'm willing to hear where it's all going. The closest analog I could think of to AE's stuff is "Wind Shear", but this didn't sound like his stuff at all to me.

Man, no kidding about that guitar synth at 1:09. It's sounds pretty weak and dragged all of 1:09-1:55 down, a solid chunk of the track. I thought the lack of fluidity in its performance was a bigger deal than the others, especially 1:27-1:55 where it was pretty much on its own in the foreground. It sounds whiny and shrill and doesn't even form a good texture with the rest of the grungy, dirty instrumentation. When there was a pretty decent different guitar synth being used at 1:00 as well, the synth at 1:09 also sounds rather lame in comparison.

2:06's section was at least better in that the lead synth wasn't trying to function like an electric guitar. Very nice, subtle escalation of the sounds under the melody from 2:06-2:14. 2:15-2:23 not as much, but 2:23-2:41 just sounded awfully cluttered and overbearing, rather than possessing a pleasing thick texture. Melody just got hammered by a mess of sounds in the effort to go for a very aggressive and powerful section before the close. That's more subjective to me, and thereby not a deal-breaker.

This is pretty cool so far, and has some very dark, dirty, industrial overtones. I'm not really as impressed by some of the sounds as the others were, but at the same time the construction here was pretty good and put these sounds to strong use.

But I'm a stickler. The synth guitar at 1:09 IS a dealbreaker for me. Beyond the feeling that the performance on it was too mechanical and not that strong to begin with, that synth itself sounds awful when placed in this setting. It's a choice that can either be avoided or at least worked around. I think it's a glaringly sour and beginnerish-sounding spot in an otherwise good mix. I can't pass it in good conscience. Best of luck on the rest of the vote, Alex.

NO (tweak/resubmit)

[zircon]

So if I understand you, your entire vote boiled down to not liking his guitar sample?

[Liontamer]

Originally Posted by zircon

So if I understand you, your entire vote boiled down to not liking his guitar sample?

Absolutely. To me there's too gaping of a quality disparity between that one section, and the rest of the track. It's been done before.

[JJT]

This is over the bar. Barely, but I wouldn't feel good about voting this down.

I would like to express to the remixer that for this remix, the difference between "good enough" and "great" rests on the guitar. If you had managed to get someone in the community to record the guitar part with an ACTUAL guitar, the overall effect would have been much more profound.

That, however, is a personal choice left to the artist. If you find yourself in this situation again, I strongly recommend asking around the community. There are a lot of guitarists, and i'm sure many would be happy to lend their axe to the cause.

whatever.

YES

[The Orichalcon]

Very awesome intro. I wish those snare hits were a bit more industrialised, but what can you do.

I'm in strong agreeance with Larry and JJT on this one. The guitar is the deciding factor on this one. It sounds very fake and is a major standout issue from 1:30-2:00 in particular. I wouldn't feel comfortable passing this if that could be easily fixed up, or recorded properly.

In regards to the rest of the mix. The general sound is very dirty, lots of use of distortion effects. It's all done fairly well. I'm not personally fond of such a sound, but it does work for the context of the mix. The arrangement is good, though I'd personally like to hear a little more bass-end grunge if you manage to find a real guitarist.

I'm gonna follow Larry's lead here and strongly request from the mixer that the guitar is either changed to sound more realistic, or better yet a real guitarist performs that part for him. It would be instant pass at that point if done well.

NO (Resubmit)

[GrayLightning]

Good source material selection, this is one of my favorite SNES themes in the last decade or so.

To be honest, when I first heard this last week, I was going to NO this. But the mix has really grown on me.

First I have to say that bottom end synth you're using is so PHAT and lush.

I am digging the arrangement ideas brought to the table here. There's some quite creative stuff that I did not expect to hear on this type of arrangement. Drumwork is ok, but I like the sounds you used and how you used them.

I personally think the guitar is a definite low point. Now, I'm not one of those elitist people OMG FAKE GUITAR. I'd say I have listened to more music on the panel that uses synth/sample guitars than anyone due to my upbringing of 80s/90s game music - from KKC, Sega, Falcom and the hundreds of xyz arranged albums. But even in that context, I think the guitar here sounds bad. The sequencing of the guitar is just average at best, the production of it is plain. If you're going to use synth guitars, they need heavy processing to make them more pleasing. I think the sample here is fine personally. You'd be amazed what Japanese sequencers can do with guitar samples. So the question here isn't really the guitar sample in my opinion, it is how the sample is used/sequenced or the lack of technical skill to do so is also another factor. Which I should add is no easy feat anyway for most people. Solo guitar, sax, violin are probably the hardest, especially when exposed as a lead, as far as this aspect goes.

That being said, I don't think we should require people to have guitarists either, unless the synth/sample is so derogatory to the mix as a whole. Obviously a real guitar would have made this so much better.

Ultimately, how this was executed hurts the mix with said main issue, but as a whole I feel it's still passable, barely. Very borderline YES