[Liontamer]

Hey peeps,

Got a submission for ya.

Contact Info:
Blue Magic (Damon Campbell)
e-mail:
website: http://www.angelfire.com/blues2/bluemagic/

ReMix Info:
Donkey Kong Country 2
"Stickerbrush Symphony" & "Hot-Head Bop"

Here, I am attempting to combine both the "Stickerbush" and "HotHead Bop" themes, but in order to do that, I had to make quite a few note and key changes to the original melodies.

Also, I was also trying to do this mix only from what I could remember from playing the game years ago, so I didn't listen to the originals while making this mix. With that said, I hope none of you are turned off by the fact that it will be a little inaccurate. I really wanted to simulate the feeling of pure amazement that I had when I first played this game and heard its soundtrack, and I'm hoping everyone that hears my little remix will fill the same way.

You'll find the link to my mix on the website posted above.

Enjoy.

[zircon]

Gonna take a wild guess here, you use a lot of delay effects in this song, right? Normally I don't hate on ReMix titles, but come on. You can do better than that. :)

Ok, title critique aside, this is actually a pretty neat mix overall. I like the style a lot; good assortment of pads, inobtrusive synths, and some acoustic elements thrown in for good measure. The weak point in the chain is probably the percussive stuff, which tends to be on the boring side, and the pattern at 2:00 that comes in just doesn't fit at all. The sequencing is aight, but the kick is no good. Doesn't fit the style at all. Also, the piano is a little on the fake side - try the Clavinova soundfont, I think it would work a lot better here. You could probably tone down and re-EQ the ProTrax guitar later on as it's a little loud and low-end heavy. Lastly, using some intelligent compression and limiting on the master track to maximize volume and get a more 'full' sound would be advisable to really bring the most out of what you have.

Arrangement seems to be pretty solid, to me. I'm never a huge fan of fadeouts - I think you probably could have taken out the fadeout entirely but left the rest of the material there and done fine with that. I also thought that you probably could have had more stuff going on in the middle section. You've got a long intro and a long outtro, so more 'meat' would help to balance that. You don't necessarily need to make the mix longer, but adding more instruments or layers to the 'climax' might not be a bad idea.

This is a good start. Tune up some of the production things I've pointed out and refine the arrangement a bit, and you should be good to go.

NO

[Liontamer]

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=dkq - "Stickerbrush Symphony" (dkq-17.spc) & "Hot-Head Bop" (dkq-14.spc)

Interesting opening, even if I didn't like the opening synth there; it creates a genuinely interesting texture though, so I'm not simply hating. Strange choice to have the synth at :23, seemingly handling a melodic part, positioned so quietly in the track, but I waited to see how things developed.

Once things picked up at 1:06, the texture seemed a little uncohesive. Though you're going for an ambient-type background, the strings you're using as pads sounds really muddy and didn't really Bassline had no meat on it to begin with, but then you amped it up nicely at 2:00 to prove a hater like me wrong.

Despite everything going on though, the overall texture didn't seem very full until 1:27's addition of several elements added a lot more busyness (and, I could argue, clutter). Maybe it's just me, but it sounded like there were too many sounds upfront. Regardless, I actually liked the pattern at 2:00 and though it fit ok. I think the piano and guitar parts sounding so inorganic hurt the piece more.

Piano at 2:21 sounded REALLY mechanical due to the note velocities being so similar from note-to-note. The sequenced guitar at 2:39 didn't sound realistic, but the better variation of note strengths helped mitigate those issues and place the listener's focus on the strength of the writing, unlike the piano.

I thought the arrangement itself was pretty solid, with some good usage of the two themes, especially the combination concept of 2:21-3:05. I don't think that needs much work, if any, but then again I don't harp on fadeouts as much. A very interesting spin on the originals with this decidedly chiller approach.

Follow whatever's practical/useful to you from zirc's production advice to spruce this up, Damon; re-examining the sound balance among the various parts as well as beefing up the overall atmosphere and fine tuning some of the more mechanical-sounding sequenced parts would hook this up.

NO

[big giant circles]

I agree with Andy about the title. I recommend something like "Yaléd Hét". Not only does it sound exotic and stuff, but it's actually "Teh Delay" backwards. (The accents are to make it seem more authentic). So that way you still get to keep your title without it sounding like so much of a cop out :D

Err, anyway.

I caught a bit of this back on the WIP board. I really dug your approach back then, and I'm glad to hear your completed version. I'll just come right out and say I like what I hear, bro. I personally feel you've nailed your targeted style in this piece. The ambience is well established with a nice array of pads and filter sweeps, and the stereo field is utilized extremely well-diversified without tipping the balance. I'd say my only gripe would be the overall EQ as I think it could have used some additional tweaking as it's a little heavy on the high end, which can be a little piercing through phones. Very similar to some of bLinD's work.

The arrangement is fairly decent. Really not a whole lot more I feel I could expect from these two sources on top of what you've already got here. Interesting how you kind of kick off the intro with the Stickerbush reference in the pads/strings and Hot-head in the synths. I think it worked. Granted that a song lives up to it's intro, I don't mind the length of it (the intro that is). And I also don't mind the outro on this one either. I think it gives it a kind of fleeting, evanescent feel, which is totally acceptible in this style as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't really feel that the percussion felt boring, or about the pattern not fitting in at 2:00 like Andy said, but I think he's right about the compression and mastering, with the EQ tweaked here or there.

This is a tough call. I'd like to pass this without question, but at the same time, I wouldn't mind hearing the EQ tweaked, so it's a toss up. Really, could go either way as far as I'm concerned. This is one of those calls where I personally feel it's passable, but it could still be just a smidge better.

Sinde I feel it's already passable, I'm going to go with a

borderline YES

I also wouldn't mind seeing a little more input from my fellow J's.

[DarkeSword]

Reminds me a lot of the Metroid Prime soundtracks, though with more focus on melody. I really like the texutre here, and I think that your sounds are working really well together. Acoustic sounds and synth sounds have a nice synergy.

No hate here. Jawesome work.

YEA

[pixietricks]

Originally Posted by big giant circles

I personally feel you've nailed your targeted style in this piece. The ambience is well established with a nice array of pads and filter sweeps, and the stereo field is utilized extremely well-diversified without tipping the balance.

Agreed. This is solid, solid work. The whole mix sounds a little hot, but I certainly wouldn't reject it based on EQ alone when it's not a serious problem. I'm not sure that I'm feeling Larry's comments on the cohesiveness of the texture. What seems to be the problem? Sounds fantastic to me! :D

The arrangement itself is a little straight-forward, but I feel like you've achieved a decent balance between source and originality. Love the FX and panning- very mysterious! Maybe it's just my New Age bias, but I see no real issues with this remix.

CERTAINLY

[Vig]

This is a great track. Atmosphere is fantastic. EQ sounds fine to me. I think zircon made some valid points about the arrangement. Drums COULD be more interesting, middle section COULD be thicker, ending COULD be better. However, none of these things come close to putting this thang under the bar for me. It's beautifully layered, and the instrumentation works.

Here's my own creative input:
So the piano and guitar sound hokey. I think you could have done better if instead of trying to "pass off" the piano and guitar especially, you had gone the other way and made it super mechanical but in a complex way, it could have been really interesting.


regardless,

yES

[The Orichalcon]

This is a pretty good mix. The choices in the production don't fit quite right with my tastes. But it fits together right in the context of the mix. The samples are thin, but they're all thin. I would also have liked to have heard some thicker mids.

My major problem is the horrible, horrible fake piano. It's simply awful. The fake guitar is at least bearable in the way it sounds. But the piano sounds like someone's playing an unrelated MIDI file in the background that was accidently recorded along with the mix somehow.

Since this seems to be the thread for weird judgements...

INDUBITABLY

(Borderline YES)