Liontamer Posted January 21, 2008 Share Posted January 21, 2008 metaphist aka Paul Ford pauleford@gmail.com Forum ID #8822 Little Nemo: The Dream Master Ending Theme Shane Barber's remix of the final battle theme got me interested in Little Nemo. When I gave the game a listen, the ending theme just spoke to me, so I had to do it ------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/nsf/little~1.zip - Track 19 Opened up with some fairly interesting sounds. The ceats added in at :20 were pretty tame, but OK for the purpose of a buildup as the volume on it gradually turned up. Got to the source melody at :42. The groove was good, but the overall levels were too quiet, and there was definitely something missing here to really give the piece some full-sounding energy. The textures here felt a bit sparse with no compensation on some other level. You had a good concept with the dropoff at 1:24, but it would have been all the more effective had the previous section been fuller. You also some good, gradual rebuilding starting with the return of the percussion at 1:45, but the end of the rebuilding at 2:09 still seemed on the empty side. The ambient break from 2:33-3:25 was a bit long, but a cool idea nonetheless. Definitely fitting given the game being arranged. While the general groove was good, it was a bit samey after a while. Nonetheless, I thought the arrangement was pretty solid. There needs to be some tweaking work done with making the volume louder and the dynamics more effective. Still, no issue if this passes as is; if I'm seeming too subjective on this one, this should have a shot at getting some YESs. Definitely good luck with the rest of the vote, Paul. This is some of your most solid, accessible material yet. NO (refine/resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted January 28, 2008 Share Posted January 28, 2008 Cute arrangement. Seems like you had fun putting together the swingy groove and the soloing. The combination of sounds works, if a little cheesy. It kept a relatively steady texture level though, and I can see where Larry's samey comment comes from. More variation on a textural level would be nice (all the "verse" sections sound very similar), and even some more dynamic volume changes could really help the parts draw the listener's attention more. Related to that, I felt the song lacked energy. The lead instrument isn't that full, and your song feels lacking in mids. Bring out those mid instruments more, or consider doing some layering with the lead to fill it out. Like Larry, I could see other judges saying YES to this, because what's here is pretty good. I just think it needs a little more. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted February 29, 2008 Share Posted February 29, 2008 The opening beats remind me of ziwtra's Blue (Shooting Star Mix), which is not a bad thing. I agree with Vinnie though; while I absolutely love chromatic percussion, I think that you could use some variation in your lead instrument. I felt like I kept waiting for this song to open up with a more expansive sound with some kind of sustained synth handling the melody. The song kind of felt like it was on auto-pilot after a while. Certainly a pleasant auto-pilot, but auto-pilot nonetheless. I'd like to see a refined resub of this, but maybe we can leave this mix up for more votes? I can see other joojes giving this the BIG Y. NO refine resub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcos Posted March 18, 2008 Share Posted March 18, 2008 This may not have the thickest texture or be the most dynamic with regards to lead sounds, but taken in context (that this is an ending theme), all of the stylistic choices made here make perfect sense. I felt that near the end the pad section was too long, but other than that, everything else is above bar for me. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 A production note real quick, this whole thing sounds a bit quiet... some compression/limiting on the master track would help to boost it up 2-4db or so. I like the texture here. This reminds me of old-school OCR in almost every respect, from the gentle bells and pads, to the simple (but solid) groove, bells, etc. I agree that given the length, the texture probably could have changed up more over the course of the song, but I don't think it's quite a dealbreaker for me. The arrangement is pleasant, if not a little on the conservative side, but it gets the job done and I didn't feel like there was a great deal of repetition. My primary complaint really is the volume. I think this needs to be boosted. I'm going to go with a NO resub because this isn't necessarily a dead-easy fix, and you might also think about adding some additional parts as per the critique of the other judges. But this is a close one for me, so please, resub! NO, resubmit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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