DarkeSword   Administrators 🎮

Dunno if we have a policy concerning redistribution of OCR albums. Let me check with djpretzel.

I really dig the groove in the beginning; there's a wicked vibe going on. I agree though, that it sort of gets killed with messiness when we get the detuned piano. I can kind of see what you're going for with that in the minor section at the start, but here are some suggestions, mostly fror the right hand part: I think you'd be better served with a drier sound in the piano, so less reverb for one; keep the detuned sound, but bring it up an octave or two and add a delay effect; and for a little fun, put a high-pass filter on it along with a little distortion. You'll get a nice eerie high piano sound. The synth strings playing the prelude melody lack definition and end up bleeding together a bit on the moving lines; be careful of that. As for the arpeggiating line, it gets old fast, so try to change that up a little by automating the duration of the individual notes to change over time (i.e. legato to staccato and back again). Might get some interesting results with a chance to fill things in with some more beatwork. So yeah, less reverb would be good all around I think; go for a cleaner sound and tighten up the percussion. Not a bad sub, but a long ways to go. Good luck. NO

Feel like all I ever do these days is echo Larry and Andy. Your acoustic guitar sample sounds horribly fake and needs to be sequenced with humanization in mind. I don't understand the point in using such a warbly background pad when you could do so much better other things like sustained strings, choir, etc. The reverb on the percussion is just too much; there's a horrible echo effect on the clap; sound like the reverb was compressed. The overdrive guitar just doesn't work. Everything around 4:30 starts sounding ridiculously messy. One of the biggest problems with this piece is just too much reverb on everything. The piece is soaking in it in a very bad way. The acoustic guitar has these low strums that bleed together and cause a lot of destructive, dissonant interference in the low frequencies that end up sounding jarring. You need to think a lot more about balance between your instruments, get some better samples, and not use reverb so much. And believe me that's something coming from me, because I abuse reverb like no man should. NO

This feels...anemic. Those kick hits need to be really deep, and the bassline really needs to be prevalent here to establish a solid groove. Andy's right with the comment about it sounding thin. There's a sparseness here; you need to fill out your midrange way more. The sustained pads you have are far too quiet compared to everything else. You did what you could with the source; there's not much there to mix. The dynamics are pretty flatline; might want to think more about development and buildups. There's a lot of repetition. :\ NO

I'm pretty familiar with the source; I've got the game and play as Luigi for the sole reason of listening to his theme; it really is the best song in the game. This is pretty much the same as the in-game song. It's not different enough, and the fact that the original has better brass makes this a hard sell. Not bad for a recreation, but we're looking for more than just a recreation. You really gotta make the piece your own, not just riff on the original. NO

SM64 has one thing over Galaxy, imo: controlling Mario. Maybe I just played way too much SM64 back in the day, but it's annoying in Galaxy when I slam the stick in a direction and Mario takes a second or two to get started. Can't do turn-around jumps as easily either (run one direction, slam the stick in the other direction and jump). Maybe I just need to get used to it, but so far Galaxy's Mario isn't nearly as acrobatic 64's Mario.

Rather crude, but it's a start.

Ocarina of Time was the best yet, but it's certainly not the best since.

WTF why is this thread still alive I second the motion.

Forgive me for being glib here, but Larry and Andy generally summed it up (Jimmy on the other hand contributed NOTHING). This is a nice atmospheric piece, but it simply doesn't use enough of the material you've said you're arranging. You've got to use more of it, especially when your piece is nearly six and a half minutes. NO *BGC edit* ur mom, darke

The percussion doesn't really sit well in this mix. It's lacking in definition, drowning in the pads and strings; percussion in this context really needs to be a solid anchor, not something far away in the background. I think a lot of your lead instruments are lacking in definition too; this is bad, coming from me, because I generally like glassy leads. I think this piece needs a more solid direction; right now it just floats around aimlessly. Ground the piece with your percussion and a bassline. Also, the source is not as complex as you think it is. They're not all different melodies going on at the same time; they're different parts working together to support and embellish the melody. Try to break that down and don't feel obligated to use everything. Some of it is just comping chords, and you can always write your own version of that. NO

With a title like "Ticking Clock," I expected more of a pulse. The bass drum doesn't begin to provide that. You need something deep here; low pizzicato cello or SOMETHING. There's not a lot of dynamic contrast here, which makes it all sound a little boring. Like Andy said, you need some more motion here. If there's not enough material in the source, go ahead and hunt around in the other tracks from the game; you might find something that meshes well, and if it doesn't mesh perfectly, make it. NO

Also borderline; the banjo (?) feels panned too far. It's also a bit short, but almost makes up for it with an organic, creative arrangement. Almost. Ultimately, I think it's just too short and doesn't go everywhere it could. There's a lot of potential here. NO resub

I guess life after Rachel is a life trying to fill in the holes. THE HOLES SHE LEFT IN MY HEART Yeah man, nice song, but you gotta use more of the source. NO

I can't imagine that pumping effect being intentional unless this was some kind of electronic mix. I was waiting for some wicked beats to drop in and explode my face. Alas, my face is intact. As for the arrange, it's pretty straight forward; a lot of sustained chords and unison melody. There was a bit with the harp that I liked, and the bit near end where the rhythmic statement gets passed around was a nice touch, but ultimately it just plods along. NO

Arrangement is far to similar, but because of the weak attack on a lot of the brass samples, it lacks the driving momentum of the original. :\ I agree with Andy and Larry that you need to really step up the arrangement on this one; it's too much of an upgrade here. The sliced beats also sound ridiculously out of place, especially when you have no bassline to go along with it. NO

Not bad at all; pretty kick-ass actually. My only complaint is string and brass samples; they sound really weak here. With all the other great sounds around (esp. the vox), you owe it to yourself to beef up the strings and brass a little. NO but it's an easy resub

Well I can't speak for Dave personally, but even with such a potentially small audience, I would still think it'd be an issue. Bandwidth isn't free, and OCR isn't exactly made of money. Even small things like this could potentially be harmful, especially if it catches on. I dunno, maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.

I like the idea a lot, as an artist.

I'm also interested in extra content for remixes. I'd also love to see a separate "Artist's Notes" section where the artist themselves can provide some insight on their piece (we already see this to a certain degree in Dave's writeups, but perhaps artists could provide something more technical that wouldn't necessarily fit into the context of a write-up).

I hope this isn't streaming songs for it's preview mode; bandwidth is expensive enough with downloads alone. We don't need people streaming songs off the servers every time they want to listen to a song on their Google Homepage.

Also known as Terranigma.

Its gotta be on a weekend.

Don't post links to GH. Also, what's the premise of each project? Total soundtrack? Highlights? A more focused theme?