DarkeSword   Administrators 🎮

If you don't know what to look for, we have a Handy Dandy Checklist™.

Yeah I mean...the special effects in the old movies are really cheesy too. xD

Trying to hard with that low bass harmony. There's too much going on down there and it's muddying up the soundscape. Organ sample sounds like it's being played backwards; the weak attack is no good here. 16-note rhythms aren't balanced and start bouncing all over the place. Your drums are lost in that low bass drone. There's too much wooshiness everywhere that's distracting from the actual music. It doesn't feel like you paid enough attention to how the sounds and parts are supposed to lock in with each other until the end. Everything sounds like a mish-mash, and the worst offender is that low bass droning synth. Get rid of it. Don't even bother trying to scale it back, just axe it and try something else that isn't going to pervasively overpower everything. This needs a lot of work; the arrangement kind of meanders around and never really focuses on a single idea. Some people call that avant-guard; I call it sloppy. Think more about locking things together rhythmically, balancing your instruments, and listening to your piece as a whole, not just as a collection of separate parts. Synergy is key in almost any piece of music. NO

One thing that really strikes me is that nearly all the portraits of everyone depict the characters as young people. Even Celine looks mid-20s. It makes the way the story play out that much more poignant and raw.

I surprised even myself. Most of the time I was sitting here saying "ain't no way this shotgun's gonna hit. oh shit..."

I'll provide you with a MIDI of one of my super old mixes and you can upgrade it. Collaboration for the win. EDIT: I merged the threads. No sense in having two. EDIT THE SECOND: I'm also pimping this out to everyone I know. Really awesome job man.

jesus this is brilliant

Actually, Temple of Doom was the only Indy movie where Dr. Jones was kind of required to save the day. All the Nazis ended up dying when they opened the Ark (as they would have even if he wasn't there), and they never would have been able to remove the Grail from the temple, with or without Indy. It's a staple of Indy movies that the macguffin ends up destroying the villains of its own accord. That was the case here, as well.

Yes. In other words, completely faithful to the source material!

Yeah I'm not saying I'm good or anything. I'm just saying that I play Pyro a lot. And kill assists are pretty much the essence of the Pyro. xD

Really lacking in mid-range stuff. You've got lows and highs, but the middle range (for harmonic support like pads and stuff) is almost non-existent. It causes your drums to sound pretty exposed, especially that snare. I'd scale back the busy xylophone a little too, sometimes it's a little too navi-eqsue ("HEY! LISTEN!"). The synths you've got playing Zero's theme have pretty weak articulation and the notes sound mushed together. There are some good ideas here but I think you should work on balancing out the elements. Sometimes it just gets kind of crowded and spastic. NO, resub

Not really feeling the vocals here; I don't like the big airiness to the sound and there's so little of them that it seems tacked on. Regardless, they're not so bad that they kill the piece, and they're performed nicely. The guitar stuff is pretty great. YES

Gotta agree with Larry on the texture and depth. It feels really lacking in this piece, which is a shame, because there are a lot of cool ideas. There's an attempt here at a really broad kind of sound with the synths, but there's just not enough harmonic foundation in terms of pads/background synths to really create a large soundscape. Things get better around 3:00, but its too little too late. The percussion is pretty simple in the beginning parts of the mix; perhaps too much so. The kick lacks...punch. ... Yeah, this isn't bad by any means, but I feel like it doesn't achieve the broader sound it's hinting at. This could be really anthemic, but it's too simple. :\ NO, resub

Indeed. If there's one thing to be sure about SciFi/Fantasy/Anime fans, it's that we all carry a certain degree of obsessive-compulsion when it comes to collecting things. We're completists.

Piano is way too mechanical. Strings are really thin and the drums have too much treble; the sizzle is washing over the mix and ruining the soundscape. That section around 2:00 attempts to ramp things up, but it falls extremely flat due to the sparseness; there's very little bass and no bassline to speak of. The incessant string drone doesn't help the soundscape either. Overall everything sounds either lo-fi or unbalanced. The arrangement is pretty boring too; fairly repetitive; it's either the same piano thing over and over again or the same string thing over and over again. The percussion isn't all that dynamic either, considering it's so prominent. NO

FUK DAT Q!!!

"Your timing is too good! Waaah!" Don't listen to Larry. Being able to play with a good sense of rhythm is great. This is a pretty rockin' piece. I don't have any problems with it at all. It's got dynamics, a solid performance, and a great sound overall. YES

I like this; it's very chill, and the glitched percussion adds a lot of character; it feels like robots taking a break from all that heavy-lifting, sitting around with martini glasses of oil. Nice. YES

Man, you should tackle the Genesis/MegaDrive version of the soundtrack. It's so good, and so much better than the Saturn one (LARRY >:\). This is a tight package mang. Beats, guitar, sfx, everything melts together with great synergy. It's got a really chill atmosphere. It gets a little sparse in the end with the piano though; I think there could have been more in the way of pads or strings to fill in the space. YES

That transition is a great example of how transitions should be done. It's very solid. I think you have an interesting texture here; it's a bit cavernous in terms of reverb but it's not overdone. The drums do tend to stick out a bit, especially when they come in and begin defiltering. The bass hits a little too strongly. In any case I like the melding of the themes. Very cool. YES

Ah, don't you just love Yoko Shimomura? ¦] The tone overall is a little dark on the pianos, which I personally prefer, but like Vinnie said, a little more contrast between the dueling pianos would have helped, especially in terms of definition. Some of the articulations get lost. Overall though, great piece. Very dynamic and epic. The pianos mesh very well. Nice job. YES

This is so mechanical, which is a shame because the original is so expressive and emotive. The arrangement is basically "Romance" transcribed to other instruments. The hand percussion doesn't really work for me here; what you're attempting reminds me of Space Lion from Cowboy Bebop, but the percussion is just too rigid for it to work here. I think that for a piece that strives for an organic atmosphere, you really need to look at your humanization. NO

This isn't bad at all; I like the texture and the builds, but I think you need to use more source, like Larry and Vinnie outlined. I'd turn down the EQ on the high end too; no need to sizzle like that. NO, resub

Yeah this is pretty solid all around. Very funk, very groovy. I love the oriental-beatz at 1:30ish. Solos are phenomenal and the percussion integration into the solo sections shows a lot of attention to detail. YES!

Larry, technically speaking, a saxophone is a woodwind instrument, not brass, because it uses a reed on the mouthpiece (that's what she said). Sax feels out of place initially. Not sure about it, but it's not really detracting from the piece. Great part-writing; I'm glad you didn't ignore brass like a lot of people (i.e. me) tend to do when sequencing an orchestral arrangement. Nice development, I love the triplet feel at 1:28 and then the switch around 2:00 back to an eighth note feel. It's fairly seamless, which is always a plus. YES