*NO* OutRun 'This Ain't No Shower (It's a Downpour)'

Your ReMixer name: Lidawg

Your real name: Liam Charalambous

Your email address: charalambousl@gmail.com

Your userid: 45748

Name of game(s) arranged: Outrun

Name of arrangement: This ain't no shower (It's a Downpour)

Name of individual song(s) arranged: Magical Sound Shower

Comments: I started this remix around the beginning of October. I was looking through the projects forum and I noticed that there was an open track on the Vroom project. After listening to the source I realised that it was an amazing candidate for a bright and upbeat mix. I subbed it to be on the project but didn't manage to succeed and I honestly understand every reason why. The version I sent was robotic and lacking in life. Akumajobelmont gave me some really good feedback that stimulated a drastic change in all my music. So many thanks to him!

When it comes to arrangement, I'm terrible at planning style and structure. They kinda just.....happen. I throw it all into my DAW and it the music sort of steadily mushes into a mash of my favourite things from different genres. This started off as a dance-styled mix with an electric guitar lead. It just didn't work for me and decided to tip balance of rock and dance more towards rock. The middle solo section is about as skilled as I can perform on guitar. Having neglected my guitar for many years, I'm paying the price, so no guitar wankery but if I could, I so would. Other than that, enjoy as I really enjoyed producing this. Thanks again to Guifrog and especially DjMystix, they always manage to point out those little things I miss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxcVk6ygHVE

Definitely a good source to work with. I'm noticing that you're mostly sticking pretty close to the source melody in your writing, and I think you can do more to pull away from that, especially further on in the arrangement. Because things tend to stay pretty close, as the mix progressed things started to get repetitive. I did like your countermelody and the solo though, it added a lot of flavor, and you can definitely do more like that to add your own personality. I'd also like to point out that some of the down areas felt pretty sparse and dragged on for longer than are necessary. You can trim out the fat here, and make for a more focused arrangement.

There's a lot of reverb going on here, making the whole soundscape feel very echoey and sparse, which just isn't working well for me. The drums also are pretty looped, and there's a lot you could do to have them reflect and enhance the music.

I think you have a solid start here, but you need to focus your arrangement a little more and add some more of your own personalization, and do a bit of overhaul on the production side of things.

NO (resubmit)

ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION

[X] Too conservative - sticks too close to the source for first half

PRODUCTION

[X] Low-quality samples - some of the drums/claps

[X] Generic/cliche sound choices - trance synths

[X] Overcompressed (pumping/no dynamics) - lead synth distorts

[X] Lack of bass/low-end in parts, muddy in others

[X] Excessive reverb

PERFORMANCE (live recorded audio/MIDI parts)

[X] Timing not tight enough - lead guitar

STRUCTURE

[X] Lacks coherence overall (doesn't "flow" enough)

[X] Abrupt ending

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE TRACK

[X] Good solos

[X] Source tune choice(s)

NO

I get the feeling from listening to this that the reverb is an attempt to cover up some really weak synth samples and a not-fully-fleshed-out soundscape. The mixing is an issue, with a lot of the synths sounding like they're in a totally different room when compared to the drums, for example.

The synth sounds themselves are just too generic to pass my bar, unfortunately. If the production/expression was spot-on, it'd be a different story, but overall I feel like the sequencing was weak (the plucked one at the end of the mix sounds like it's completely out of time) and there was no real personality to any of the sounds except for the lead guitar.

On a positive note, your drum writing was really great. The dance clap is the only sample that's not working for me, and it's sparse. The production on the drums is another story though, it has the same reverb issue as the rest of the track, except a bit more exacerbated, for whatever reason.

I hate to come off so negative on a mix, but I really don't feel like this one was ready for submission. It's a pretty good foundation, but there's a lot of things to work on before this is ready for posting.

NO