Super Mario Bros. Underworld Theme "Love/Hate Relationship"

Here it is, rather house-ish and, IMO, some of my best work. The vocal samples are from The Beastie Boys' "Super Disco Breakin'", courtesy of acapellas4u.co.uk.

http://stuff.kingtigermusic.com/music/remixes/Love%20Hate%20Relationship.mp3

Feedback pls

EDIT: 5/25/12 5:58 MST : I updated some levels a wee bit after listening to the song in the car. The url will go to the new version.

EDIT 10/27/12 11:09 PM MST: newer version: http://stuff.kingtigermusic.com/music/wip/Love%20Hate%20Relationship%20%28WiP%204%29.mp3

EDIT 11/01/12 11:40 AM MST: slightly newer version: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/34713846/Love%20Hate%20Relationship%20%28WiP%204.1%29.mp3

EDIT 11/08/12 11:28 PM MST: mastered version: http://stuff.kingtigermusic.com/music/wip/Love_Hate%20Relationship%20%28Mastered%29.mp3

Written as I listened: I like the beat you get going in the beginning, but when the source comes in, the rhythm is kinda jarring in comparison to the swingy nature of the percussion. I love your use of samples. The sounds you have are good, too. Later on, the source rhythm meshes much better. Around 2:50 or so, the song becomes different. Not bad, just different, and it's kinda confusing. I definitely think that you filled the 3:40 of content with good, dynamic music, and I like the arrangement.

So I think you should change how you introduce the rhythm in the beginning, and do the transitions a little differently. Pretty good!

I think you might want to incorporate more of the source material into this. It gets lost in the improvisational components. But, personally, I think its a great take on this particular theme. The intro and ending, I think are pretty well coordinated and the sound effects are a nice touch, brings back some nostalgia.

Nice track so far.

The melody doesn't fit the rhythm of the drums, at least from my perspective. From 2:50 on, like PixelPanic said, it's different, it almost sounds like a different song. However, in this section the melody fits with the drums better.

This is certainly an interesting take on this iconic theme. Yeah it is a super-liberal arrangement, but that doesn't really bother me. There is only so much you can do with SMB Underworld, so it is refreshing to see it taken in a completely new direction. Not much from me in terms of production crits on my first listen, nice job so far!

um .. I'm not familiar with the source, is there a link?

jk.. How's this going? I googled "kingtiger mario" right now, because this was one of the first mixes I listened to when I first joined the site. I have to echo previous comments about the 'refreshing take' because this theme is so iconic. The question is "how do you really make a remix of this and have it stand out" and I think you did a really good job with it. I love really creative mixes that make something completely new. good job yo.

...welp, I was all ready and fixin' to work on this a bit more...

...but it turns out I deleted the session files for it X.X

Normally I back them up to an external drive but this time I guess I didn't. Not the first time I've done it, but hopefully the last.

I may be able to make some small changes by adding layers/making basic modifications to the stereo .wav file, so I'll see what I can do.

Finally made some updates. Just some small changes to address what seem to be the main issues: transitions and the final section.

PLEASE PLEASE tell me your thoughts, I really want to submit this soon.

http://stuff.kingtigermusic.com/music/wip/Love%20Hate%20Relationship%20%28WiP%204%29.mp3

"Smart" is the word that came to mind for me. It really sounds like you knew what you were doing with this.

Having read what others said about the rhythm and source material I paid lots of attention to it when the melody came in, and I actually think it works really well. Changing the part of the beat that the notes fall on made for a fun take on the song.

Very awesome with the sound effects and samples. Both can get distracting and hugely detract from a remix if they're used poorly, but they do nothing but benefit this piece.

The little wandering solo the melody does towards the end gets just far enough away from the source material to make it dynamic and rewarding when it snaps back to the source's chords at the end of it.

Thanks for your feedback everybody. Here's a slightly newer version (I just tweaked a transition near the end):

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/34713846/Love%20Hate%20Relationship%20%28WiP%204.1%29.mp3

(I'm having trouble with my server this very moment so I'm using dropbox... hopefully this will be resolved soon)

I'm gonna go ahead and make this "Mod Review", I never put it "Finished" but it's not really gonna change that much anymore, since I don't have the original session files anymore, and I think it's in a pretty good place.

45 seconds until any solid source? Hm, just when I thought the source parts were getting too conservative there's a really neat, more interpreted part. Repetition might be a problem at times, but then the track goes off into some cool new thing.

On a second listen, I can hear what I'll assume to be some liberal references to it in the intro. This looks like it's in the clear as far as source is concerned.

Lots of bass, and most source bits seem pushed quite far under the rest of the instrumentation. The rest of the track actually feels pretty weak by comparison. Too much bass. Don't get me wrong, you've got a cool big bass drum sound there, but the rest of the track feels a bit too chill for it. Dunno how much too much, that gets subjective and takes some style consideration, but I do think it's an objective criticism.

Overall, it works. It's a bass-y chill track with some groove to it. Some parts feel copy-pasted, some parts feel conservative, some parts too liberal... So the best I can say is sub it, and good luck.

/mod rev

Thanks, Rozovian! That was very insightful and actually very encouraging.

I was thinking about doing some basic mastering to it (i.e. track multipressor & maybe a limiter), do you think that would help the bass issue?

Yeah, overall things like that can be solved with some multiband compression or just EQ. A limiter is usually good to slap on at the end to avoid clipping - just don't force it too loud, this track wouldn't benefit from being pushed like that.

I tried mastering it with some EQ, Multipressor, and a Limiter. How does it sound now?

http://stuff.kingtigermusic.com/music/wip/Love_Hate%20Relationship%20%28Mastered%29.mp3