djRyoji

New song! Hope you enjoy.

Very nice! It's shaping up nicely. How are you feeling with it so far? I guess now it's all up to you to do whatever you like most with it, I hope I was helpful someway. Looking forward to seeing the finished result.

Ok that's better! If you want, you can keep the initial pattern you had for the beginning and then transition into this new one. I'm posting the original for reference: Now, I see the ostinato isn't always present. How about we try reflecting that? In the second phrase, for example, minute 1 approx. At 2:10, after it returns, it gradually starts disappearing in favour of the string melody, which has been built up before that. I think this would be a good moment to change it to this new pattern you have! After 2:10 the texture becomes fuller and more orchestral, you could use those strings in your favour. Then, after the electric guitar solo, we have the climatic section, with solid percussive beats, more movement in the second contralto, the electric guitar and the very important flute, as well as the strings we had in the background until then! Also I don't know if it's the instrument, but the parts which will have the contralto voices sound too low, more like tenor. I haven't looked into this and it could be just fine, but keep in mind the contralto range just in case! I'd keep on constructing it, adding the missing flute melody, the guitar and other stuff, finishing both contralto voices and just finish it overall. As you intend to do a Baroque cover, use the instrumentation at your discretion with what you have available (i.e. turn the electric guitar solo into a violin solo etc). PS. Also, please forgive me if in the previous post I missed the point at times, I didn't know how far was this in development or what the source even was! And this is quite the big project you have started too, keep up the good work.

Ohh! Thank you for your offer, I opened it to see how was it constructed. As far as Reaper shows, it seems you have 3 tracks doing the ostinato, an empty one and the melody doubled in two tracks is that correct? I played around with it a bit and here's what I think. First thing I would do is remove the empty one and do something with the other melody track, maybe another backing melody to the third? Regarding the ostinato, at least use one instrument for variation, maybe some counterpoint with the melody or another rhythmic pattern, and even change the ostinato itself at times. The main problem I see though is that listening to the same motif, and the same notes, and the same chords, and the same melodies over and over (and over!) is no fun! If one would dare to adventure themselves in such minimalist style, there's a lot of thought and knowledge that must be put into it to keep it interesting. An exceptional example would be the "Violin Phase" by Steve Reich, I recommend you listen to it (a little bit at least, it's not easy to hear through if you're not feeling it anyway). While small changes could be made here and there, I feel this song needs an overhaul. It's very important to know what you want to accomplish and how you're planning to do so. And that's before anything though, so that's why I said I would like to know more about the source material before going into detail. If it's going to have lyrics, then they are crucial for this step, as they may determine the whole project. In a nutshell, I don't fully understand it! What is it and why? I'd be glad if you could explain! EDIT: Ok, so just clicked on it and it says on Soundcloud it's the Ending from Xenogears! I'm sorry, I don't know these games... So let's see, you want to do a Baroque cover of the song with latin lyrics? I'm still interested to hear more about what you're trying to do!

Thank you for the invitation, I never used Discord but I guess it's time I could try it at least haha

Cool rendition! And that brass doesn't sound half bad! Might I ask what VST are you using? I've been looking for some good, affordable and most importantly convincing brass VSTs. Someone recommended me xpand!2 for other instruments, which is the one I'm using mainly, but their brass is crap... (It's sad to see threads with no replies btw, I thought ocremix would be more active...)

I agree! Very nice!!

Ohh very solid covers! I'm also interested in doing covers and remasters, so this is definitely a good place to learn. Also, wow, gotta love your commitment and dedication!

Hmm! May I ask what is this from? I like the idea, however for a 7+ minutes song wouldn't you agree that if you listen to it from top to bottom the ostinato is too "ostinato"? xD It's a perfectly valid composition tool! But maybe you could add a bit of variation to keep things more interesting? Just a though. And I imagine the voice would replace this accordion-like instrument correct? Oh and do you already have the lyrics or that's for later? If possible, I'm curious to read them I'd like to know more about this overall!

Oh! Well I'm more of a classical guy, but it's great to see some Wario Land love! While not my preferred style, I really like what you did with the original, seems like a perfect fit. Good job!

Thank you for the feedback! Hmm I'm not sure what you mean by humanisation! I recorded myself playing it slowly on my keyboard and then I "quantized" it because of minor input lag, so every note would be where it should. After I did that with the entire song, I used the "Humanize" tool (in Reaper) juuuuuust a tiny bit to the whole thing so it didn't sound mechanic (and adding envelopes). More "Humanize" though and things wouldn't still be what I wanted them to be. Maybe you mean just humanising the cues to better reflect the movie, adding a bit of time in between so it feels like a "live performance", but honestly that was never quite my intention: the visual part of it was just an aftermath so it would be more entertaining to the average non-musician listener, never the initial premise to arrange the music around of. Good you bring that up! You see, my initial idea was doing a full, complete medley of every single song in this manner (like, the Underground and Boss themes would have been an entire section of their own, as well as the Credits theme), but I quickly dismissed it as too long, tedious, and not concise enough. What I did was imagine a storyline of what I though could be a Mario Land cartoon and did a selection of the soundtrack accordingly. I don't know if there's a time range for remixes to be submitted though. iirc there was a Chill Penguin remix here of an OCR Megaman X album around 10 minutes long! (which I really liked btw). That said, I have to humbly disagree on cutting repeats though, as I already planned it to be as concise as possible. Actually, no song here actually loops, the transitions were made before or at the loop point in the originals, and even if there is some repetition, there's always a variation (except in the first phrase of Sky Pop because of how short it is and the contrast it supposes from the previous section). The only "loop", if you may call it so, is the Pipe theme which does indeed repeat twice, but it was on purpose: first, to establish the new theme in a minor, second, I wanted the listener to recognise that tune as the Pipe theme, which at first could come up as unrelated (because it's in minor unlike the original), and third, I wanted to make clear to the listener to follow and appreciate better the following counterpoint with the Underground theme by repeating it before the new voice comes in. I don't want to sound pretentious or anything, but I really had in mind the balance between all the sections and really did my best to give them independent identity while also keeping them as parts of a whole. Ever since the beginning, I was worried for it to be structurally unbalanced like some medleys are, but I'm really happy with the result in that regard.. Sorry if this turned out to be a text wall! I hope I explained myself comprehensibly haha. And again, thank you very much for the reply!

Thank you very much for the reply! Glad you liked it! Yeah actually, I just did the movie to make it more appealing visually but the music was first of course. Gee you think so? You're too kind! I may consider submitting it then. ^-^

I don't know the game or the song, but from what I heard it's a nice remix! I wouldn't really know what to say to improve it though, better leave it to someone more experienced.

djRyoji's Workbench Welcome! Instead of posting a new topic for every song I make, eluukkanen inspired me to create a general topic with my stuff like him. So I'm editing this post for that purpose. Hope you enjoy and thanks for listening! --- Original post: Hello everyone, I'm eager to finally present my take on a narrative Super Mario Land Medley, arranged as if it was a classic cartoon. I hope you enjoy!

Thank you for your kind reply! Yes I understand. Honestly, I was a bit hesitant to make an account here as of now because I know my current goal is just "covering" instead of actual remixing until I get some practice. Then again I could get useful advice, so I ended up trying! Right, I found Gargoyle's Quest a suitable game to begin with because of its short but very characteristic soundtrack, kind of a first step to introduce own ideas to already existing songs. I tell to myself 'If I was asked to update this soundtrack for a remake, what can I do with the source?'. So that's why I'm not fully going into remix territory yet. But sure thing! I will apply your tips in the future. Ohh really? Reaper's master peaked around -0.5 and with all my volume output turned to the max it sounded loud enough through the entire song to me, hmm... All in all, I'm glad I'm going the right way. Hopefully someday I try actually submitting something! Thanks again, and have a nice day you too!