Liontamer's Content - Page 73 - OC ReMix Community

NO Valkyrie "Queen of Ice"

Liontamer replied to Emunator's topic in Judges Decisions

Source tune is fuckin' sick, I love this kind of stuff; great tone, nice oomph to the percussive and bass elements. With this arrangement, there's a softness to the instrumentation that's majorly holding this back. Texturally, this is much emptier than it should be once things kick in at :27; I'm sure the musician Js can better elaborate on it. The drums just have no oomph at all, the padding-style background flourishes first used around :45 are too quiet, and while there's several parts active, the track still sounds hollow throughout. The sequenced guitar is serviceable though exposed, but it had a strong tone and was an overall solid sound to it; ensuring the instrumentation around it adequately fills up the soundscape would help the sampled guitar not be as exposed. When the organ takes over at 1:53, it almost sounds like the other instrumentation was globally reduced in volume. Maybe it's actually the guitar levels dropping after the change from the chorus back to the verse at 1:35; maybe my ears are playing tricks on me and it's just the bassline levels sounding more subdued, but something's going on there and the organ sounds way too loud and stapled on top of the other, much quieter instrumentation. It's less of an issue when the organ first appears at :45 though, but the organ does occupy a lot of the space at the expense of other instrumentation having the full impact. It may seem like I'm shortchanging the substance of the arrangement itself; it's a strong concept that carries over the energy of the original while also comfortably integrating some original writing ideas and vamping to personalize the approach. My sole issue is a pretty significant one though, i.e. properly fleshing out the soundscape, which may also involve changing how various parts are mixed relative to one another. Happy to have another more knowledgeable (read: actually knowledgeable) judge expand upon that POV. Keep at it, Chris; lots of promise here. Even if this isn't the track that would get you posted, you're well on your way with output like this. NO (resubmit)

March 11, 2022
3 replies

NO Pokémon Diamond Version "Spacetime Overture"

Liontamer replied to Emunator's topic in Judges Decisions

Odd little source tune; cool, but odd composition for the first 30 seconds before settling into a nice reprise. Lots of tension in the original, so I'm curious to see if it's retained in the arrangement. String articulations were definitely too exposed as very fake in the intro from :30-:42; obviously, everything here's sequenced and there are similar realism issues with the brass and vox as well, then the piano sounding pretty bad with its cameo from 1:49-1:50. Aside from those issues, the instrumentation was serviceable and above the quality bar; the smaller detail/realism issues do needlessly ding this though. Structurally, this could stand apart more from the original vis-a-vis our arrangement/interpretation standards; this does have a somewhat different tone than the source because it's not beat-driven, and there's additive orchestration to help flesh this out and present somewhat different texturally, but this orchestration nonetheless doesn't feel interpretive enough when you listen side-by-side with the source. It's a solid orchestral cover approach, but I'd love to hear some additional ideas (either interpretive or wholly original) to help complement this. That said, the concept just seems to be a straightforward orchestration approach and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it just isn't a fit with the level of interpretation we're looking for. Good stuff, Chris, and if you're willing to revisit this, I'm sure you could add to or expand on this in a way that could get it above OCR's bar. No matter what, looking forward to what you've got cooking in the future. NO (resubmit)