Liontamer Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 Hello my name is Aaron Moody this is my first submission so im guessing i should skip the formalities: Remixer name: Moody ca Jones Real name: Aaron Moody email adress: aaronnmmoody@yahoo.com website(this is my myspace if you guys don't put like putting myspaces up please email me back ill try and make my own page): http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=58238970 Forum name: Moody ca Jones About the song Song name: Square Melody Kingdom Hearts: Dearly Beloved Chrono Trigger: Leaving the Body, Time's Scar Talk about the song: Well this is the first song I have submitted for you guys to hear so I hope you like. If you are wondering why the base might be so strong it’s because when I made this song I made it at school. This was an in school project so we had to use school equipment such as garageband a keyboard (not the musical kind) a mouse and smelly headphones. So the bass will be a bit booming just because the headphones I used really sucked. But anyway this song I would compare to a rock, not just any rock a sedimentary rock. To create this song I took all my favorite games found the songs I liked and layered them on to each other. Simple. The quality and depth of the song I made is not would I really wanted but all I had time for. That’s all for now you can tell I’m new at this thing. You can look forward to a more detailed and richer and better mastered hehe song in the future thanks for listening. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Ha, you confused Chrono Cross for Chrono Trigger. S'alright, I saw the source tune titles and knew what you had in mind. BTW, "Leaving the Body" has the part reminiscent of the end of the Chrono Trigger main theme. Kingdom Hearts Original Soundtrack - (101) "Dearly Beloved" http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - (113) "Leaving the Body" Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack - 101 "Chrono Cross ~Time's Scar~" This track is too reliant on pre-existing drumloops (i.e. sampled stuff not written by you) to provide the backing instrumentation. I definitely recall the loop from one of the older ReMixes we have, but the standards have changed since then. The usage of drumloops doesn't automatically kill a submission, but everything else would have to be clicking on all cylinders (e.g. Quinn Fox's "Boss Uniform"). Unfortunately though, the sequenced guitar synth sounds pretty fake, and generally doesn't sound good in most contexts. The piano and string sequencing also sounded too mechanical, and the tone of those samples also sounded too thin. Arrangement-wise, the melding of the themes seemed to work fairly well though. The bassline was a bit much, as you alluded to, but I think it turned out OK, just to give you a second opinion. What's here is a good base, Aaron, so don't be discouraged. You should continue to work on this using our resources if you're up for it. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted April 23, 2008 Share Posted April 23, 2008 Very clever idea to layer the themes - I think it worked nicely. I also thought the slick, futuristic mood of this piece was cool. The beginning of this piece is a little chaotic though, because all the instruments play around the same volume level. I found it difficult to place my focus on anything. More emphasis on the melodies and less on background instruments like the strings and guitar could give this more direction. Production was troublesome at times. Larry noted the mechanicalness of the piano and strings, and I agree. While the intro starts fine, I kept waiting for the song to really take off. It didn't happen until 1:28, which is probably too long for a song of this length - it sounds too thin before the fat drumloop comes in. I think a stronger lead would help that out and place more emphasis on the melody. Also, probably wouldn't be a bad idea to bring that drumloop in sooner. (BTW, I didn't have a problem with the drumloop, because you switched it up a little and you usually had other stuff going on. Obviously, some of the other judges may see this differently, so you may want to reconsider your usage of the loop.) Some great ideas here, but it needs attention, especially in the production. I hope you touch it up and send it back to us. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted June 8, 2008 Share Posted June 8, 2008 I think the fakey-ness of the sounds works in this piece. I also don't think using drumloops like this is an issue; the percussion sits nicely in the soundscape and seems to be sliced and retriggered at points, which keeps things fresh. I don't have a problem with that at all. Great texture, very groovy. It gets a little repetitve and the intro is a bit long, but that's not a dealbreaker for me. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted June 10, 2008 Share Posted June 10, 2008 This struck me as very quiet right off the bat. Is there any reason why the volume is so low for the first :48? I was expecting things to pick up after that point in terms of loudness, but even though new instruments were coming in, everything still felt fairly subdued. The mixing makes it very hard to distinguish between the harmony and melody parts. It wasn't really until 1:28 that any part of the track was of a solid volume (in this case, the drums.) On top of the voume issues between the different parts, the piece overall lacks mastering. There doesn't appear to be any compression or limiting, which is really important in adding "glue" to a mix and evening out the loudness. Volume issues aside, the bass is panned to the left which is very distracting to me. Bass should generally always remain in dead center. Throughout the piece I noticed a general lack of reverb, which made a lot of the parts sound rather dry, for example the string sample. I liked the use of delay, but without reverb, and without making the delay stereo (eg. bouncing back and forth from left to right) it didn't add too much to the depth of the texture. Additionally, the sweeping synth at :56 has far too much high end and is almost inaudible except for the grating treble. Definitely re-EQ that or bring it down an octave. I actually didn't have a problem with the drumloops here and in fact liked the instrumentation overall. The crowd effects were a bit corny to me, however, and I think you could have done without them. In terms of the structure and arrangement of the piece, I thought your interpretation of the source tunes was good. However, the layout of the track seemed a bit off to me. It basically takes 1:28 before things start to thicken up, and that doesn't last for long until 2:00. We get 16 seconds of density before 2:16 when things drop out and the outtro starts. After listening to this a few times, I felt like I was missing a strong "hook", chorus, or climax of some kind. You have heavier parts, but they last a very short time, and the rest of the piece is mostly a sparse texture. That, combined with the repetition of some of the riffs, leads me to recommend that you consider adding more meat to several sections here or possibly expanding the length if you have to. I do like this mix overall, and I think it has promise. Certainly, as an early effort, it's impressive compared to a lot of what I hear. Keep at it; even if you decide not to resub this one (assuming it gets rejected), keep our advice in mind for your next work. Good luck! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted July 6, 2008 Share Posted July 6, 2008 I'm not thrilled with the instrument choices. The groove is cool, it gets a bit repetitive, given how busy it is. On the whole I'd say the spectrum is a bit harsh around 3-5kHz. Aside from that, I think the partwriting is overly simplistic. Nothing else to add I guess. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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