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Rafael A. A. Merlo

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  • Real Name
    Rafael A. A. Merlo
  • Location
    Rio de Janeiro - RJ, Brazil

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  • Collaboration Status
    3. Very Interested
  • Software - Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
    Live
  • Composition & Production Skills
    Arrangement & Orchestration
    Lyrics

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  1. The movie is awesome! May the Force guide you away from spoilers XD I liked your tribute. It evokes a cool sense of grandeur. I'm just not much fan of the brass samples, but the choir ones worked very well Thanks for sharing it
  2. Hey folks, I'm kinda new to this kind of stuff. After I saw this post I've searched the Wikipedia article about SoundFont, but even reading it I feel to not be able to grasp it yet. So... what's a SoundFont?
  3. About the Aquatic Ambience track: Jesus, 9:36 is a hella long track, but here we go =) I loved the glissandi of the first 2 min of the piece. It was unexpected and pleasant, and reminded me Leandro Abreu's remix of another DK number titled "Sinfonia del Sabio". The water sounds on the first minute sound somewhat contrasting with the other materials because of the quality of the samples. For what I know of OCR style, if this is not a fully integrated aspect to the song as a whole they (judges) tend to not like it. I don't know about the politeness of suggesting a solution, but if I was with you in person I would say it anyway: maybe apliyng a filter to the other materials of this section to make they sound more chiptune-y like the water sounds, and making an automation for the intensity of this filter to fade off slowly up to the 1:30 of the song. But it's just an idea XD I liked the bass section that enters around 1:40. Maybe a little muddy in equalization, but not to the point of being a problem but reinforcing the "aquatic" nature of the piece You do a seamless work to present the main material at 2:15. The timbre choice of the lead melody blends very well with the rest. The thinning of texture at 3:07 is great to prevents boredom. Very good. Oh, the water sounds again. But they don't are long exposed to conflict again. Very nice solo-variation of the source main countermelody in around 3:36. It ends at 4:24 and don't feel long. Oh, and monkey sounds ^^ From this point there's a timbral shift to a more open sound, and in 4:50 the arpeggios get to my face and say "listen to me, I'll take you upstream!", and that's another big vibe-y section that's very pleasant. At 5:41 I feel the transition from the previous to the next section is sounding a little beyond the intention, but maybe it's just me. Repetiton of the main material. Repetition, identifiable recurrent materials: that's what musical form is about. If this section was not present it would certainly be missed. 6:33, one more variation begins. It sounds a little boring until around 6:56 when it begins to get more syncopated, a new resource. This lasts until 7:25, when not so seamlessly the piece seems to begin reaching for its conclusion. Its "conclusiveness" fills my heart at 8:01, and everything past there sound to me as an extension of some kind. Sure, there are materials (the monkey and water samples) that deserve to be reprised, but I believe they can be more effectively done more as a ~20s last breath than a 1min30s outroduction in a already long piece. Thus, overall, very good work, Glejs I liked very much your work and, even though I just created my account last week (despite being a OCR user since around 2005), I am looking forward to see this one making it. Keep it up and show us more beautiful things with the other tracks o/
  4. Hi Aquadango =) I like so much this piece from Megaman X. From X1 to X4 I believe the Opening Stage numbers could have more attention by remixers in general. The following is my take on some tips to look after in your ReMix. I used and adapted the form on the fixed post in this forum and hope it may help you to refine your work =D ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION [X] Too conservative - sticks too close to the source PRODUCTION [X] Drums have no energy [X] Mixing is thin (e.g. too few depth in some frequency ranges) PERFORMANCE (live recorded audio/MIDI parts) [X] Bad intonation (electric guitar) STRUCTURE [X] Not enough changes in sounds (e.g. no change of instrument in the lead melody, static texture, not dynamic enough) [X] Too repetitive (overall, but in harmony and rhythm section in special) WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE TRACK [X] Energy and feeling of the performance [X] Source tune choice
  5. StormSkuggan, you are in the right path! You have good ideas that gave me incentive to finally make an account to post into these forums. I have a lot to comment, but I'll focus on the "to improve on" because that's my reviewing style, but don't think that because I will speak little of the qualities I didn't liked what you did. I do like, and a lot ^^ Overall, if you do intend to label this ReMix as rock/metal, I feel the mix to lack the punch and the groove of these styles. What kind of do you have familiarity with Power Metal? Are you thinking more in the lines of an Angra, a Gamma Ray or a DragonForce? My cents of suggestion if you need a sound reference =) The introduction for me sounds unclear, hauhauah. But to the point that I was unclear about if it should be unclear, and this "double uncleariness" seems to be in need of a direction The hi-hats on the drums that begin at 0:12 sound to me as lacking humanization (and maybe another sample with greater quality can do great here). This is a universal problem to all your production, but here is a flare sign. The electric bass that begins at 1:01 and the electric guitar that enters sound to me as in need of a better timbral treatment. Their section until 1:56 sounds to me as somewhat dragging; you could benefit for introducing more elements here to retain the listener's attention or/and, preferably, reduce this section in lenght. At 2:23 you do a rittornello of the two main materials. In the actual shape, I don't feel this will work. Repetition is great and necessary to ensure musical form, but you need to do the second showing in a new light for it to not sound boring. The melodic variations of the source are cool, take them even further if you are bold to it. At 2:51 you introduce the secondary material of the source. You alter the timbre of the lead melody a bit, and the rest of the rhythm section changes accordingly, but I feel it's not enough. You can enrich this by adding some instrumentation, giving the melody to another instrument, changing the equalization, and maybe all of this together. At 3:15 you do a false entrance of the coda of the source material in a 3/4 meter. Man, this is awsome. You build this great formal energy that grows into a... Repetition of 1:56 at 3:29? For me, this was very frustrating :/ From 1:56 to the previous section, speaking of OCRemix Submission Standards, you may run the risk of staying too close of the original source, in terms of the order of the materials. Then in 3:29 you expose the pair of main materials again, but in a way too similar to the previous one (no significant changes in instrumentation, lack of SFX, same timbre in the melody, etc). And in 3:56 you go to the secondary material, with great melodic variation. In 4:21 is my favourite moment. This suspension with the arpeggios from the piano are marvelous. You can enchance this to even further highs with better production / mixing techniques, but the idea is awsome \o/ Then in 4:34 we finally have an extended coda. You can work better the rhythm section in terms of energy and more notes to make it feel more "codastic". This moment is the upward strike, but there are other moments in the music that have more momentum than here, and that can be improved. The warping portal you open at 5:04 is a marvelous idea, and ultra innovative in terms of remixes in this site, and the reason you convinced me to give all this attention to your post. But I feel you can execute this idea better. The transition from the coda to it sounds strange and unclear, and the the following chaotic motions of the voices are cool but lack the vortex-y feeling of what is happening. You need to put more sound effects here for it to really work as intended. Speaking of sound effects, if you are really in the rock/metal vibe, if I'm allowed to suggest a Progressive Metal project, check out the last Ayreon album, "The Source". It has a lot of great SFX, and in great variety. The four last tracks can give you great ideas of what to apply here =D Well, sorry for the wall of text. This is my first post, and I got excited, but I do hope it's useful XD
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