(Sonic Adventure 2+Sonic Colors) SPM-Dreams Don't Come True

This is my current entry for the SZRC that is going on right now in the competition forums. Check it out if you haven't yet!

I decided to pull out the big guns early and do a huge collaboration on a Power Metal Remix with Brandon Strader, Xarnax42 and Pumpkin King.

The concept for the remix is based off of the first part of the story to Sonic Colors when Yacker is pleading with Sonic and Robotnik is capturing the aliens. It's a pretty stereotypically power metal story about oppression and freedom.

Sources:

Sonic Adventure 2 Cosmic Wall

Sonic Colors Tropical Resort

Remix:

https://soundcloud.com/garpocalypse/dreams-dont-come-true-cosmic-1

The sources I think should be pretty easy to pick out. The lyrics pertaining to yacker are split between Cosmic Wall's melodies and Tropical Resort's. Robotnik is straight Cosmic Wall. The chorus is Tropical Resort and Pumpkin King's awesome keytar'ing is based off of Cosmic Wall. Originally I wanted to do two solo sections based off of each source but getting this much together in a week proved difficult enough as it was!

A huge thanks to everyone I worked with!

This was my first real attempt at mixing vocals and I ended up kinda killing them. Power Metal vocal processing is at the top of skills I want to learn right now so the next version will be much cleaner.

Bash Away!

Damn right I love power metal, Gar.

This certainly has the Stratovarius kind of vibe. However, I feel like the drums just don't have as much "power" as they could. Like, the double bass sounds really "clicky" to me. Snare also feels kinda weak. There are also some parts that are mixed rather quiet - the solo and the arpeggios around 2:30 for example. The whole track could stand to be louder. The vocals feel too dry and the singing itself doesn't have the long sustained, soaring type of melody this music usually does. Also, the transition into the death metal segments feels awkward. The key to pulling off the melodeath stuff that has both clean and growled vocals (I've been practicing as I recently formed a melodic-death metal project. Feels good to write the heavy stuff again!) is to layer the two vocals styles together and let the guitars carry the melody when the vocals are just growls/screams. If you just break into flat-out extreme metal guitar work after having nice, flowing chord progressions and melodies, it can be rather jarring. This song is a good example of what I mean -

Also, your track ends rather abruptly.

The growls are too resonant in the upper mids, and the kick needs more low end punch. It's mostly the click coming through right now. At 2:02, the brass is a little too buried. It also sounds like the guitars are a little too loud and rolled off on the highs a tiny little bit.

Man, the entrance into 3:56 was not strong, which confirms that earlier comment on the guitar treble. You had that strong snare, and then it can clearly be heard that the treble is rolled off quite a bit there, which undermines the implied strength. Not to mention the kick and snare are buried here, which makes it seem muddier than it actually is. This last thing is personal preference, but I think the parts that have the growls bleeding into the melodic vocals coming in can have the growls fading out just a little bit faster to make the melodic vocals more audible earlier. Nice ambience with the fading-out growls though.

This sounds good man. It just needs some more EQ work to tame the resonances on the growls and to strengthen the kick and snare; volume fixing to let the brass come through and bring the guitars down just a tiny bit (0.4~1.0dB); a brighter mix overall; and some less pumping master compression. The limiter is being pushed quite hard on the bass heavy sections.

No offense to Strader but his vox sound way too smooth for power metal. They lack the grit and fire that a PM singer needs. Don't get me wrong, smooth vox CAN work, Matthias Blad is a sterling example. Maybe you need more reverb on them and stronger compression. The death vocals were better. Mix is decent, drums could have more weight and punch. 3:50 is too abrupt of a transition, you need to smooth it out.

Count me in as interested to see where this is going.

Thanks for the comments!

This was one of my reference tracks while I was balancing.

(obviously not the youtube version)

For the drums I tried to get something close to that. Equilibrium tends to keep the drums quieter than other bands, especially the kick, and I think that's where my ear goes when i'm setting the faders.

However, I feel like the drums just don't have as much "power" as they could. Like, the double bass sounds really "clicky" to me. Snare also feels kinda weak.

For the first time I was actually pretty satisfied with the kick. I know what you mean by clicky and I have heard tons of tracks where the kick is nothing but a crap plastic clicking sound but I think I got just enough click in there to draw attention to it without relying on it being nothing but. I'll drop the EQ a little and see what happens tho.

layer the two vocals styles together and let the guitars carry the melody when the vocals are just growls/screams. If you just break into flat-out extreme metal guitar work after having nice, flowing chord progressions and melodies, it can be rather jarring. This song is a good example of what I mean -

Also, your track ends rather abruptly.

Some good suggs for sure. I meant to have some instrumentation backing the deathmetal parts at the very least but completely forgot to stick them back in there during the rush to get this thing in. This monster is not 100% just yet. But when it is I am going to burn it onto a stack of CD's, take it to an OCR panel and literally hurl it at the judges!!

As for the ending I know it doesn't sound that pleasing but that was kind of the point. Dreams don't come true. You're not ending up where you expect. You had your time. Onto the next track. Unfulfilling ending ya know? I may end up making it stronger and more akin to the power metal bands I've listened to though if that point doesn't come across to the listener well enough.

The growls are too resonant in the upper mids, and the kick needs more low end punch. It's mostly the click coming through right now. At 2:02, the brass is a little too buried. It also sounds like the guitars are a little too loud and rolled off on the highs a tiny little bit.

It's been confirmed. I did incorrectly process the growls. and the vocals. I cut around 250-270 range and now i hear that it was too much. You heard the brass? Yea i buried that in there really well. Or poorly.

and some less pumping master compression. The limiter is being pushed quite hard on the bass heavy sections.

That's some ear! Actually I used Boost 11 which allows you to push things pretty hard and avoid clipping. I've been told that if you see transients go into the red on occasion that's ok as this will make up for that. I believe it only went into the red and set off the GR once every 7 to 10 seconds on average. I'll be remixing this from the ground up again so hopefully i'll get something better balanced that can be pushed harder next time.