Pippi Longstalker

I'll have to give it a listen later in the day (it's only 5:45am here, and I have to go to work). Is the link to the new version the same, or did you rename it something else, like ver 2 or something?

Hello, I thought I'd take a moment to make my presence known. I've been listening to OCR for almost as long as the site has been active, I'm a big fan of non-traditional ReMixes, such as McVaffe's Yoshi's Rag, which I believe is now titled "Dinosaur band rehearsal" or something like that. I am attempting to get into the active side of remixing, not just appreciating. It was about 2 months ago that my brain just started ReMixing game music on its own while I was at work, so I hope to transfer my thoughts into actual sound. Speaking of Sound, I hold an AS in Sound Arts, so I'm a legitimate Sound Engineer with both live- and post-production experience. I'm an amateur musician, I've played bass in a rock trio, I want to learn guitar, and play piano better as I think it will aid in my composition. In real life I get paid to do boring things, like work. It's the fun things that I do for free, like do the post-production audio editing and mastering for a local Cable-access Late-night Talk Show called Drinking With Ian. It's awesome, I've been doing it for almost three years now, with nearly 50 episodes passing through my ears before broadcast. Musically, I tend to oscillate between Techno and Metal, some months I just CRAVE Goa Trance, and others I can't get enough Strapping Young Lad et. al. However, the music I will always enjoy is folk music, especially Scandinavian folk music like Frigg and Väsen. I also enjoy the Irish community that's in St. Paul as well as some of the fine French Musette music Dan Newton and his Cafe Accordion Orchestra play in the area. I hope to bring some of these less-exposed genres into the OverClocked ReMix community, however I don't expect to knock square-pegs into round holes, if you know what I mean. Some music lends itself to specific genres, it takes a good ear to discover the possibilities. You'll probably see me hanging around in the Workshop WIP threads. I love to talk about music and what makes it work within a song. I've gotten some good feedback to my criticism, which is heartening. I don't like to leave simple, "the guitar sucks" comments, I like to delve deeper to try and get to the meaning behind the sound, and I will gladly talk at length about anything. I'll see you around. Cheers, -Steffen

Hmm, I might have to sit this project out. I've re-done most of the tracks, but the tune's not popping like I want it to, so I'm going to go back to the drawing board on this one. On the plus side, I have a lot more information on composition in jazz music, which will help me with my other ReMix ideas. Thanks for the opportunity, though!

The snare's not wet enough, in my opinion; it needs to have a little more slap. I'd also like to hear the tambourine a little higher-pitched. Have you EQ'd the bass at all? if you're passing it through a high-cut right now, try it without the filter. I like to hear the bass synth in D'n'B taking up about 2/3 of the audible register, from 20Hz to about 2kHz, give or take. Other than that, I really like it. I like the movement within the piece, the length is fitting for the pace, and the tempo is appropriate for a racing game. But have you tried playing the song at ~5-10 bpm faster? Your remix is actually slower than the title music itself. Dieselboy has the kind of wet snare I like to hear in D'n'B, I hope you find my comments useful, I really like what you've done.

From a first listen, it feels like an awfully slow build, even for chill trance. It's something like 4 bars before the drums come in, and then another 2 bars or so before the melody synth comes in to replace the piano. I like where the piano shifts to, however. I really like the change of tone once you introduce some of the breakbeat drummachine loops. I think the final minute or so is the strongest part of the piece. If it were me producing the piece, I would sporadically fade the early snare and tambourine into the piano intro starting right after the piano starts to echo and fade. I almost think the triplet synth after the breakbeat loop is introduced a little earlier than it needs to be, if you keep the lower piano chord echoing with a longer sustain and fade on the off-8th beat from the higher piano chords I think they would interplay very nicely, each coming in opposite the other. With the bass chords fading out so quickly right now, you don't get to hear it very much. When I listen to chill, I like it especially when the piece weaves the instruments together, in and out around one another, playing with how they sound in various combinations. I think that could give you some more room for experimentation, perhaps adding interstitial measures of something else like a cymbal fill, or a new synth pad, but dropping it once it was done playing. You could tease different instrument tracks all through the piece. So, those are my ideas, take them or leave them; it's your remix in the end.

For it to be a good duet, there needs to be some call-and-response between the vocals. Right now you've got them trading off verses, and then harmonizing the chorus, which is fine up to a point. I think it might take until the lyrics are written for the interplay to shine through, because then you'll know when it would be appropriate. The best duet example I can think of is the arranged version of "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail, particularly during the bridge and reprise, the male and female vocals play off of each other beautifully. I also think you might want a little more percussion. Not too much, but a little more snap to the kick and snare drums, and maybe one more kick just before the snare, so the measure goes: Kick-and-2-kick-Snare-and-4-... I suppose I'm just expecting it because it's been a trope in R'n'B ballad percussion for 20-odd years. Aside from that, there's not too much I have to say about it. It seems very well thought out, though with the oboe and bassoon covering the melody right now, the bass is really forward in the mix. I would assume once you get peoples' voices, what with their grater dynamic range than synthesized instruments, the bass would fit perfectly. Hope that helps.

While I don't think it entirely necessary to trash your work and rebuild from the ground up, it would be a good idea to step back and think about what you're trying to do with this piece. You say it's got an "apocalypse" theme going for it; what makes it "apocalyptic"? There are two ways I can see the theme driving your piece: 1st is the post-apocalyptic; literally, "apokalips" in Greek means "revelation" as in God reveals himself to mankind and punishes those who are not his followers. The reason post-apocalyptic stories are always of people struggling in ghost-towns is that, culturally, we assume the apocalypse to be an event that wipes out a majority of humanity, and while the survivors are not necessarily blessed, they did survive the event. With this, I would take your percussion and chimey-synths in the direction of Stomp, much like the music in Tank Girl when the mutant kangaroos are dancing around before attacking Water & Power. I would pull the "dun da-dun-dun dun-dun da-dun-dun" chords out of the bass register or at least give them a sharper attack, they are carrying the piece and need the strength of clarity to do so. I'd recommend also finding a different synth pad for part of the melody, it's too breathy and is forever lost behind the cymbal crashes. 2nd is peri-apocalyptic, where the arrangement can begin clean, but gradually fall into disarray as fireballs rain from the sky and put heavy distortion (but mind the clipping) on everything. If you check out Tokyoplastic's Drum Machine video, the distortion on the bass drums is what I'm thinking about. In reference to my title, you also have to think about how you want the piece to sound. Do you want it to be a performance song, or just something that comes and goes. If you want it to be a performance-style song, you can't just build and build and build to a cacaphonic crescendo and then stop, you have to have dynamic movement within the piece, like having one or more instruments drop out to allow the listener to focus on other instruments they might not otherwise hear (this is one of the functions of a break-down) I feel that this community strives to make performance-type re-arrangements, rather than just remaking the in-game looped background music, though I would not say that re-arranged background music does not have a place. There are a number of OC Remixes I would love to have in-game to listen to while playing. All-in-all, your piece as it is, kind of sounds like it doesn't go anywhere. It kind of sits itself down and says to the listener, "I'll be here if you need me, feel free to come back whenever you want because I'm going nowhere."

I made a swing-remix of the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Final Boss theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlwTYv9Irj4) a few years ago for school, I've been meaning to go back and re-build it in a better sequencer. Might there be room for it in BadAss? What is the time line for the project? I could have a WIP ready in about a week.