Jump to content

Skyline Drop

Members
  • Posts

    229
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Posts posted by Skyline Drop

  1. I suppose it really more than anything depends on your budget, both in regards to time and money. Outsourcing the music duties is pretty much common practice for a lot of filmmakers (how many directors do you know also write the music for their movies?), and while I don't know the exact nature of your project, I don't really see why you couldn't do the same if you had the means available to you. It's also totally fine to ask someone else to produce your music and explain to them what kind of vibe you want for them to create. I don't know how typical it is to dictate parts to someone for that purpose, though; I imagine some might take it as a bit of a slight to their talents that you won't let them develop their own themes instead. I dunno, though.

    That said, if you feel you have the capability to do it yourself, maybe just give it a try. Saying "it takes too long" or "someone else might do it better" sound like more than good enough reasons to hire someone else to me, though.

  2. Terranigma was about sacrifice and resurrection - it's probably filled with biblical references as well, but I suck at pulling references from memory. If you haven't played it, I'd recommend doing so, cuz it will blow almost all of Chrono Trigger's themes out of the water =p (still love CT don't get me wrong)

    And the ending will definitely mind-fuck you =p

    Xenogears and Xenosaga.

    See you next year. >:D

    I really need to get around to playing both of those series. I've heard pretty much nothing but good things about them.

  3. Real talk, I'm not usually a fan of solo piano music, but this is really, really solid. I like a lot of reharmonization you've got going on. My only real critique is that I think you spent a *tad* too long on some of the fancy rolls and such. It tended to break up your phrasing a hair more than I'd like to hear myself.

    I'm mostly just nitpicking at this point, though. It's a really great interpretation all around. Nice job :)

  4. You broke into the solo at just the right time. I was very concerned you were just gonna play another round of the chorus, so that's good that you stepped into a different direction.

    I'm gonna disagree with timaeus222 here, but I actually liked that you brought the main theme back in at the end. It rounds out the arrangement a bit, and is a bit of a jazz band cliche, but it's stuck around this long because it works. With regards the arrangment, the only thing I'd like to see is a bit more of that riff you played at 2:37. It was a cool little lick that kind of showed up out of nowhere and didn't really get enough spotlight in my opinion. I think it'd be cool to bring it back once more at the end as a little personally stamp to end the song.

    I personally think the drums - well, mostly the cymbals, really - are a bit too washed in reverb, but that's probably just my crummy headphones.

  5. Maybe it's just crappy headphones, but the drums still sound a little squashed to me. I'm not sure you've fixed all of the issues. Try dialing everything down a little bit rather than just adding limiters, or something. I'm not really a mixing expert, so I'll let someone else explain it better.

    The arrangement runs a little long, in my opinion. It mostly sticks on the chord progression and feel of the A section, which gets a bit grating after a while, in my opinion. After maybe 70% of the song, I was getting a bit bored of it, so you may want to write a bit of a changeup there. That would be pretty integral if your plan was to submit to OCR, in my opinion. At 2:20, you play the intro riff again, and I really feel like after that, it should go into a completely different feel just to break up the monotony a little bit and inject a bit more personal flair into the arrangement, especially since the feel of your take on it is so similar to the original track.

    I like your idea with the ending, but I'd try to do something to build the dynamics a bit more with each repeat of that last phrase. Maybe the second repeat, change the chord progression and instrumentation a bit, then vary up the drum pattern a bit so it builds more into the ending.

    All in all, it's pretty solid from what I hear so far. I like it.

  6. So I've decided to take a shot at arranging one of my favorite video game themes: Ryu's Stage from SF2. I went full out orchestral from this arrangement (a risky choice since I'm using mostly default Mixcraft instruments), and took it a lot more slowly and somberly than most other takes on OCR. The structure of the arrangement is a bit wacky mostly because I was trying to throw down ideas while I still had them and get something listenable before bed.

    Comments and criticism very much welcome.

    Edit: I'm smart. Totally forgot my link to the track: https://soundcloud.com/skyline-drop/shotokan-brotherhood-ryu-stage

  7. I watched some people playing it on Twitch.tv a couple days ago. It's really got a similar feel to the more recent Mortal Kombat games (which I guess goes without saying, considering the developers, but still).

    Honestly, I just kind of want to wail on Superman for being such a douche in the first season of Young Justice...

  8. Maybe it's just because I'm a wind player, but I have real issues making any real progress with songs if I don't start by fleshing out a melodic idea before anything else. Curse you, monophonic mind's ear!

    In regards to topic, the best advice I had heard was to put subtractive EQ and filters on pretty much everything. Sometimes you just can't get a track to sit well unless you trim away a lot of the excess.

  9. Just do what you want to do--if sounding like someone is what you love, gives you pleasure, then do it.

    Trying to sound like someone can be a guide in your artistic growth.

    It has its use.

    How can you express and articulate to your fullest desire if you don't know what it takes to sound like everything else out there?

    I'm gonna side with this, I think. When you learn to express yourself verbally, you do it by imitating speech you hear around you long before you start to consciously break down the grammar and syntax behind it. It can be worthwhile to learn to express yourself musically in the same manner.

×
×
  • Create New...