Drakken
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Posts posted by Drakken
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This thread could be what you're looking for. Discussion of compositional techniques to elicit different kinds of emotion:
http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22041&sid=26c0dfb71ec8452e2c44877c9b230924
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I've now listened to this on my cell phone and my dad's crappy work laptop, and the bass is completely inaudible. Granted, neither of those have good bass capabilities, but I would at least expect to hear something. It was jarring to listen to, as the bass is really important in establishing the groove. I'm thinking it's an EQ thing, cause the volume seems fine on my home speakers, with headphones, and in the car.
At the risk of seeming impatient, I'd love some more opinions!
My main suggestions would be to focus on either transitioning from each section to the next, or to get rid of some of them -- it was almost like a theme and variation of sections which had their own genres.Yep, the transitions definitely need to be shored up. I don't even have one for the end of the first "chorus" (if you will) into the synth section.
EDIT:
for the source. -
Update 9/18/12: New version: http://soundcloud.com/drakken/dexy-kong-donkey-kong-land/s-Bk1s3
Feedback is much appreciated. I'd like to mark this for mod review in the next few days.
Original post: SOURCE:
This is a remix that I've been working on for way too long considering how much work still has to be done. The source is track 3 from the Donkey Kong Land .gbs, which is apparently from the temple level. "Voices of the Temple" from DKC shares a very small part of the melody, but track 3 is the sole source track for this.
I started off one day (about four months ago) with an 8-bit ska rhythm in my head. The 8-bit quickly changed to a piano, and the song ended up turning into a groovy piece (at least in the beginning). The first 1:45 was written a long time ago. The mellow synth part came prob a couple months ago. The solo piano section I just did yesterday. The song still needs a lot of work (mostly production-wise), but I wanted to put it up here to see what people think about it.
The volume is pretty low, so be sure to turn it up to fully enjoy it!
Comments/self-criticisms:
-Nothing has been EQed
-There's some clipping; have to work on individual track volume levels. Need to get the overall level much louder.
-Not cohesive enough? I love prog rock so that might creep into my music with the different sections.
-Could get a better piano sound for the ska rhythm sections (during the beginning and piano solo sections).
-Need a transition from the rockin' section to the mellow synth part after it at 1:48
-Could improve synth sounds
-Piano solo would be better as actual recorded acoustic guitar perhaps? I'd have to get someone to play it.
-Dual-piano part after the piano solo is... awkward?
-Synth solo at the end isn't really complete; just repeated the arp for the 2nd half of it
-Need more of a transition into the percussion outro
-Percussion outro is kind of placeholder. I don't want to do anything too complex but definitely something better than what's there.
-The track title is tentative and is a nod to Dexter , which my brother says I must have been watching before I worked on this.
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I've been using the free version for a week or so and am loving it. It's so nice to be able to instantly (and it is instant) listen to anything I think of. I've been going through and starring a bunch of artists and albums I always wanted to listen to but never got around to and am slowly working my way through them.
I'm going to be starting a playlist with most of my remixes, super old mixes and new, and I'll make it available for yall and it would be awesome if some of the other remixers could join in. Its sorta like a musical time line where we can see how we've progressed over the years.Can you do that? I thought only commercially released music was available on Spotify.
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OK, here's my attempt at implementing Level 99's changes:
I lowered the reverb, though not by a ton, as I really want to retain the floaty feeling. I tried the EQ scoops, and though my ears are still untrained, I felt like it made a small difference when comparing the two versions. Particularly the flutes/woodwinds, they seem to be a bit louder now, perhaps a bit too harsh (at least when listening with headphones)? I'm very much a noob when it comes to EQ and am still educating myself, so I may be totally wrong.
Besides the EQ adjustments, I also raised the volume of the strings in the first half a bit (hopefully not too much). Additionally, in the second half the background strings were inadvertently still panned to one side, so I centered those. Let me know what you think. Assuming it's better, I'll go ahead and send it to Larry.
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Bela Fleck and The Flecktones' latest album, Rocket Science. It's mind-blowingly awesome. Victor Wooten is a bass god.
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It's the ending music from Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest (NES).
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THANK YOU! This is exactly the kind of feedback I needed.
Unfortunately, I already resubbed the song last week, but I'm definitely going to try to implement the changes you suggested. What's OCR's policy on sending in an improved version of your song once it's waiting on the judges panel?
Here's what I sent the judges btw:
Should be the same as what was in my last post, just that I was able to get it a little louder without sacrificing anything by messing with the master limiter.
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I'm really close to resubbing this, but I'm having trouble getting it louder. The volume is fine in Pro Tools (my DAW), but when bounced to a .wav file it's pretty quiet compared to random tracks in my library. I've tried amplifying/normalizing/compressing in Audacity, but none of those methods seem to get the job done without affecting the quality of the sound.
Here's the song without any changes:
And here's the song with a t-racks classic compressor:
I think the original version sounds better. I feel like the compression adds volume but sacrifices clarity or something. I'd appreciate some other opinions, though.
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Update! My song was judged in May (here's the thread). It got rejected, but there were a number of positive comments, and the consensus was that I should resubmit it. So, definitely an encouraging result.
The two main complaints were that the left-hand piano part was too simple/rigid and that the overall soundscape was a bit muddy. I've been working on it a ton more since then and made some pretty significant changes/additions. Here's the latest version:
Note that the volume is low compared to other tracks, so you'll want to turn it up. I'm still having problems getting my tracks loud. So far when I've tried compressing it I feel like it's made the song sound worse.
Any comments/feedback/suggestions are greatly appreciated. I feel like I'm really close with this one. For reference, the source breakdown is in the second post.
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Right now I'm absolutely in love with
by The National. It's the song that plays on the radio in one of the early test chambers in Portal 2:Since hearing that I also bought Think You Can Wait, a song they composed for an indie film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx3PW1mqadA
Both songs are absolutely beautiful. Now I have to check out more of their stuff.
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Are Sennheiser HD-280s generally considered pretty decent for mixing? I was planning on getting mixing headphones rather than monitors since I don't want to spend a ton of money (headphones are cheaper) and will probably be moving into an apartment soon (less noise), but I already have the HD-280s and read some positive comments about them earlier in this thread. Up until now I had just thought of them as listening headphones. If they're good enough for mixing with, I might be able to go ahead and spend ~$300 on a pair of decent monitors.
Also, a friend of mine just gave me his old Alesis Monitor One reference monitors. Not the Monitor One Mk ii, I'm talking the original Monitor Ones which were apparently introduced back in the '90s and are now discontinued. Is it safe to assume those aren't even worth getting an amp for and hooking up? I did some looking around and saw some mixed comments on them, but most of the reviews I found were super old and thus likely outdated.
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Over the years I've noticed that I love video game tunes with baroque influences - or at least what I think of as baroque. Most recently I came across this with zircon's "Baroque Virus" from the Fittest! soundtrack. Thing is, I have no idea if these are really baroque pieces or if there are some other classical influences here (or it's something else altogether). My knowledge of music history and theory is a bit lacking. I'd love to be able to define why I like these songs (and eventually attempt my own in this style).
Basically what I'm asking is this:
1) Would these be considered baroque?
2) If so, what makes them baroque (theory-wise)?
Here are the tracks which prompted this thread (Youtube links):
(duh)Dance Dance Revolution - "V" (this one's a bit different, maybe not baroque at all)
random Castlevania tunes composed by Yamane
The chord progressions in Huge Game Table and Baroque Virus in particular give me the same kind of feeling. I wish I had more examples; I used to have a playlist with a bunch of these but lost it awhile back.
If other people have examples of similar songs found in video games, I'd love to hear them. (If that happens I guess this would belong in a different forum. For now I've posted it in this one since it is a question about music composition/theory.)
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I have a song that got rejected recently due to a couple issues, but mainly the left-hand piano part being too simplistic/repetitive/rigid. I'm not a piano player, so coming up with a neat part for the left hand to play isn't something that comes easily to me. I'd appreciate some tips from those with experience composing piano parts on how to change things up and make this sound more interesting.
Here's the song:
Right now I'm mostly just doing a simple 1-5-1 pattern with occasional arpeggios. One concern I have is that if the left hand part gets too intricate it might take away from the peaceful, floaty feel the song currently has, so keep that in mind.
Also, I'm not bumping my old thread in the WIP forum for this as I feel the comments in this thread could be helpful to anyone looking to improve their left hand piano writing. Mods, if I'm wrong in that thinking, then let me know and I'll post it in the WIP thread.
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I found my way here years back when searching on Kazaa for some random game music
Pretty sure I found OCR the same way, though it's hard to remember since it was so long ago. Those first days of discovering OCR (and VGMix) and being introduced to a whole new world of video game music were awesome.
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Finally got around to listening to Stadium Arcadium (Red Hot Chili Peppers), and wow, I wish it hadn't taken me so long. One of those albums where the quality of the songs is consistently really high all the way through, which is more impressive than normal considering it's two discs. Some super awesome stuff, with lots of funky bass of course. It's quickly becoming a go-to album for me.
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Wow, I'm amazed this soundtrack is from a Nintendo game. Finally something that doesn't sound like cheap midi with bad soundfonts.
Also, jazz piano is awesome.
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This is one heck of a combination. Can't wait to see how they do it!
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Thanks for the comments! Really glad to hear you like it. I'll try to make those tweaks you suggested. I have to admit I'm a production newb, though - what exactly would you recommend EQing? Cutting some lows out from the pads at the end?
If anyone else has any thoughts, please let me know! If I don't hear anything else I'll likely be submitting it in a few days.
Just thought I'd point out, it sounds like your piano player grew a third arm at :53
Haha, let's just say he called over a friend to help with that part.
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Well, I've finally come back to this song. Here's the latest version:
I changed the piano settings to make it more reverby because honestly that spacey feel is what makes the song. I also added some more high piano stuff to the first half and did some volume tweaking.
I'm changing the status to mod review because to me it's finished. I don't think I can add more to this without changing the feel of the song. It's supposed to evoke kind of a floaty feeling of being above the clouds (duh), and I think it accomplishes that nicely. I tried imagining it with drums or more complicated piano and it just wasn't working.
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Yummy! I love Deja Vu's music, and I wish more people would make attempts at remixing it. This is a nice little treat; pretty simple but enjoyable nonetheless.
I do think it would need a bit more to make it on OCR. But then I'm not really "up" on the standards like most other people here are, so I'd wait for one of them to post.
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Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, it definitely is a simple song. But I feel like it's supposed to be - in my head it's this simple, pretty song that makes you feel like you're floating through the air or something. My concern with trying to do more is that it'll take away from that. I had considered trying to come up with a more active left hand pattern or adding drums to the 2nd half and making it fuller but shied away from those ideas for that reason. So I dunno...
I was surprised to see you say the piano sound is merely passable. I really like the spacey/airy feel it has. *shrug* The brass is actually just a warm pad, which I think goes well with the atmosphere I'm going for.
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I finally came back to this song and spent some quality time on it. Changes:
-Volume tweaks to try to humanize it and make it more interesting
-Instrumentation changes - went from solo flute to oboe/clarinet/flute with a flute harmony
-Reduced the lows on the pads so they're not overpowering anymore
-Reduced the reverb on the piano by a bit (the reverb is what gives it that spacey/ambient sound so I didn't want to reduce it too much)
Here's version 2:
%20-%20Drakken%20-%20Above%20the%20Clouds%20(WIP).mp3"]Download link
Once again, I'd love some comments/feedback.
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Acoustic guitar sample is lol.
So's the timing issue at 0:19 - the voice comes in just too late to line up properly. Too much bass in bg in 1:16-2:00 part (and the whole thing could stand to lose a few dB of lows). Rock part is too loud (clipping!!). Rhythm guitar is too soft, distant and reverby (and fake-y, obviously). Additional guitar melody at 3:19 too loud.The volume edits I was talking about before were the sudden stops of the tracks at 3:34. The reverb makes those a bit softer, but they're still too drastic, as if you killed the volume on half the tracks.
It's too disjointed for ocr. I still like your ideas, just not the way you've tried to fit every idea you've had in here. It's like you stitched together two distinct mixes of the source, one that's atmospheric and slow (0:00-1:55), and one that's a slow rock thing that would rock if done right (1:55-end). Not saying this kind of style medley can't be done (it's being done all the time on this site), just saying it's not gonna work like this.
But whatever. You've made significant progress with your update, that says something about your ability to apply critique and/or your critical listening skill. Keep improving.
The thing about the guitar is... it's not supposed to be a guitar. A not-so-good guitar patch is one of the instruments used in the blend, yeah, but to me, it's just a sound. I think it fits the mood of the song well. Not saying I'm going to keep it, but it's not like I meant for that to be an acoustic guitar and that was the best I could do.
The voices sounded fine to me, but if you really listen, I guess you could say they are a touch behind the beat. The sudden volume drops are intentional instrument drop-outs for dramatic effect right before the "climax" if you will. The right-side guitars are definitely too loud, not sure where along the line that happened. I agree that the rock section as a whole is too loud, so I'll work on bringing down the levels of everything evenly. Took a few dbs off from the lows per your suggestion.
Thanks for the specific critiques; it's very helpful.
Ufouria (NES) - Above the Clouds
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
Posted
Great to get some confirmation on this. Thanks again for the suggestions; they were really helpful to an EQ noob like me.
I've enabled downloading on the Tindeck link.
Sent!