Hemophiliac

Big thanks @Ridley Snipes and @Hemophiliac with helping to make* this banger atmospheric remix come alive! U guys da best~
Source: Sector 4-2 Underwater Area
 

OMG, I literally had made it to today without getting Whammed.  This is the farthest I've survived in the game.  So mad and laughing so hard at the same time.

OMG, I literally had made it to today without getting Whammed.  This is the farthest I've survived in the game.  So mad and laughing so hard at the same time.

Hi everybody!
I thought I'd share an original composition here for once.  Every year, I write a Festive/Christmas piece, and this year, I chose the verse-and-refrain poem Benedicamus Domino by Rev. Charles Lewis Hutchins, and by paying attention to the text and fitting the atmosphere of the piece with the poem, I was quite pleased with the results. Christmas Carols have always been a favourite part of Christmas to me, and I love the sound of a Church or Cathedral Choir singing a familiar or new piece; Festive Carols are something I love and a new composition that other groups and Choirs could sing is something I put my hand to every year.  Enjoy!
 
 
 

Welcome, and congratulations on the first post

I really like this arrangement, it's very strong and a solid interpretation.  Hand percussion throughout the piece is fantastic.  2:54 I was not expecting Song of Storms suddenly, but it works.  Production is mostly clean (only did a quick headphone listen).  Where you may run into problems is realism with the violin.  Attack on some of the notes sound a bit behind.

Aside from the violin, this is a strong creative arrangement.  Plenty of the original is there with both subtle changes as well as your own take.  Should you choose to submit, I suspect this would have a solid chance to pass.

Greetings! I've been in the music industry for quite a while now, in fact, I've been a member of this site for more than 10 years and I've been enjoying the work that everyone has been doing in here but only now have I gathered the courage to submit an arrangement of mine. This was inspired in a flamenco style with a touch of what one might hear from Professor Layton, I also added a few themes from other zelda games here and there but always sticking to the Gerudo valley we all know, any feedback would be greatly appreciated and thank you for time
 
 
 

Ask yourself this:  "Does it need to have a cadence?"

It's not a requirement for a loop to have a cadence.  Don't be concerned with including something unless you want to or need to (such as a requirement from a director).  Your transition at 0:40 works for me.

The thing that I thought was strange was a fade-in at the beginning, doesn't work for me on a boss tune.  (Unless that's just that way for WIP purposes).

Thank you very much for your feedback. I'm only 17 years old and I don't have very good VSTs, but I'll try to fix the problems you described. I'm currently in my last year of high school and I have a lot of exams left in both music and general studies, but I hope to do it during one of the school holidays.

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I've reviewed your remix and have returned it to Work-in-Progress status, indicating that I think there are some things you still need to work on. After you work on your track and feel that it's ready for submission to OCR, please change the prefix back to Ready for Review and someone will review it again. Good luck!

Congratulations on your first remix and welcome to the forums.

Evaluation:

I want to start out with the arrangement, the original is about 0:17 seconds long before the loop.  You've managed to develop it a little bit using orchestration, which is what the original does passing the melody from different parts.  That's a good way to write for an orchestra.  From 0:08-0:16 the adding of each part brings a nice crescendo to a fuller moment when everything plays together. 1:02-1:10 is a nice interpretation and new material to bring us back around the melody.  1:23-1:33 and 1:46-1:50 more good interpretation and act as good bridges to get to the next part.  1:54-2:00 I like how you trade the melody back and forth between the trumpets and trombone sections.  Having the strings play occasional pizzicato arpeggios is a nice addition that helps fill out the top end some.  The snare part writing is very good and very fitting of the style you're going for here.
The production is where some issues arise. 1:18-1:24 and 2:08-end the lead trumpet has a strange phasing/chorusing effect on it and feels out of place for an orchestral track.  Much of the supporting parts feel buried underneath the much louder leads and need to be balanced up when compared to the lead trumpets.  I know getting realistic samples of real instruments can be difficult, but there are things you can do to help even though they may not be the highest quality samples.  Adding some humanization to where the notes land on the beat as well as varying up the velocities/loudness of the notes will help with that.

This is a great first remix with a lot of potential for even more.  It's not quite ready for submission as is. The arrangement is solid and I found it to be the strongest part of the piece.  Work on the humanization and the realism of the samples and you could be on your way.
 

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I've reviewed your remix and have set it to Completed status, indicating that I think your remix is ready to be submitted to the Judges Panel. Congratulations!
If you feel like you still need to work on your track and want more feedback, you can change the prefix back to Work-in-Progress and we'll go through the review process again.
If you decide to submit your track, please change the prefix to Submitted after sending your email. Thank you!

Evaluation:
Well well well, this is a rad track.  I did go back and find the judge's decision to see more about what they were saying despite not have hearing the previous version.

Here is my breakdown on source usage:
0:01-0:46 source
0:47-0:54 source
0:55-1:25 multiple sources
1:26-2:33 multiple sources with variation and additions on each repeat
2:38-2:41 source interpretation
**2:42-3:19 original material inspired by sources**
3:20-4:03 interpreted source
4:04-4:11 original build
4:12-4:26 source
4:27-4:36 source
276 seconds total
183 seconds of source without interpretation
229 seconds with interpretation
This should be enough usage to get you over that hump that was mentioned previously.  I do notice that things return or loop a few times, but you do vary up each return so that it's not the exact same thing playing again (which is good).  I.e. Adding a different instrument, rhythm, or melodic variation.  You manage to keep the arrangement fresh and it changes right when it needs to, especially with a 10 second source to utilize.  Production is solid throughout.  My only nitpick is 2:27-2:33 gets a bit too busy to really be clear with all of the parts going on at the same time.  Considering it was just a quick spot of that it's not a deal breaker for me, just would like to point it out as it could lead to issues if there was more.
Overall, very nice track.  I dug this quite a bit, and would love to see this passing.  Good luck on your resub!
 

OMG keep these SaGa Frontier remixes coming!  I've been in love with this game for 25 years!
This is definitely one of the more memorable tracks from a game filled with great music, and this glitchy, low-fi ambient chill remix is a very original take that also manages to be in the same spirit of the original.  Well done!

Review:
Solid, very clean.  New bass parts work well.  Nice prominent drumming.  
A few minor gripes: 0:46 the ride/hat there is very similar in velocity with each hit, feels mechanical.  Also stands out a lot in the mix, you could just take a little of the brightness away with some EQ on the top end (but not a deal breaker for me).   Double pedal is very clean and love to hear it.
I'd change this to done, but I'd leave that up to you on making any changes with the hats/cymbols.
Nice work.

@Hemophiliac Interesting. Maybe I was using the wrong approach due to how I learned mixing mainly through YouTube. Tutorials hardly use orchestra music for demonstration, so the way "mud" develops (e.g. overlap from untuned percussion, resonances from recording etc.) and is handled is very different.
I was actually already considering the intervals, but rather based on instruments and sections. For example close writing in the flutes is fine but for trombones open writing is better. The goal is of course to avoid smearing the sound from a musical point of view but so far I hadn't considered this in the context of mixing. In hindsight it is of course obvious, but in my head composing and mixing were two separate and independent stages with independent problems.
That is also why increasing the reverb just worked. The writing was already clean with regards to intervals, resonances were fixed before the reverb and recording issues can't be present due to the instruments being modeled.

Evaluation:

Revisions for version posted on 1/21/22
I'm so happy you worked on this and improved what was mentioned.  It's a gain for sure.  So much clarity was added in the sections I mentioned from before, it really helped.
And thank you for making it downloadable now, I was able to take a look at this with a spectrum analyzer and see a few problem areas.   0:54 when you bring in the hihats and metallic sounds you're getting a lot of high end frequencies in the 7,900-12,000Hz range (they get as hot as 9.5 db!)  They are too forward in the mix.  To my ear it sounds like the hihats that are panned to the right that are the culprit here.  The same thought applies to the crash type hits at 1:12.
The snare is clipping.
2:15 when the new bass part comes in to accompany the source again it's a nice addition from the previous version.  However, 2:41 when you use that pattern again I'm a bit thrown off by the "skips"(2:42, 2:45, 2:47 for example) in the rhythm.  To my taste I don't necessarily like it, but it's a creative decision.
3:45 return to the opening theme again so now I hear those 3 source sections that I mentioned from my previous review as A B A because of the bass pattern addition to the second repeat.  Improvement!  Good job.
The judges will take issue with how the various sections have been copied and pasted.  I did mention this in my previous review.  You did add the bass to help in the second return of the source melody at 2:15.  I suggest maybe on the third time you add a variation to the melody to make it a little different (that could be with the rhythm, pitches, embellishments, or even effects).  Anything can help it to not sound like it's been copied and pasted.
This was a big step forward and a lot of improvement was made, if you address these things you will be ready for submission.
 

Evaluation:

First off, nice track name

I do like that there is an element from the original that you chose to focus on and use throughout the arrangement, the arppegio that starts at 0:09.  You use and morph that motif in various ways throughout the track.

Lots of late 90s, early 2000s detuned super-saw type synth leads here.  The detuning used to make the super-saw lead is making it less clear than it could be.  Some detuning is good, but too much makes it less clear and is taking away from the strength of the lead.  If you made the patch I wouldn't go more than +/- 10 cents when fine tuning the pitch on the oscillators.  This will also help with clarity and help to declutter.
The sections where you have a lot of drill type effects, while they sound cool; gets very busy and cluttered.  Not only is it cluttered in the amount of stuff going on but also the high frequencies.  This is especially the case for the sections: 0:55-1:20, 1:49-2:15, and 3:18-4:00.

So my main issue with the track is the amount of repeated sections.  Where we do get the source melody in it's full glory they are short, and each one is reused with not much alterations to the previous time we heard them, like a copy + paste. 1:20 - 1:30, 2:14 - 2:24, 4:02 - 4:11 should have some variation to them so they are not a direct copy and paste.

2:24 - 2:59 Long ostinato section where everything drops out and it's only the gated backing synth and drums.  It's good to have sections like this that have less going on and allows for a contrast, however; this was too many repeats before the next element is introduced.  The gated synth pattern gets old very fast for a section that lasts this long.  You could possibly reduce this by about 15 seconds and still have the same effect.

4:12-4:48 (end) A very long fade out ending, you could easily cut at least 15 seconds of fade out so we aren't just being mercilessly pounded by that same pattern.  This is also a copy and paste of the 2:24-2:59 section but with more adding one more element to it while it fades out.

In summary, in it's current state I can't see this passing the panel.  Add some variations to the repeated sections so they are not identical, shorten the long fade out, and declutter the busy sections.  This could be a very strong track with some tinkering, and I enjoyed it.

I'm interested!  Keep me in the loop on this please.

Strongly considering going to Magfest this year.  I will have vacation time and I would love to come out and finally meet more people that I have not had the pleasure to meet.