Dreamstone Legend - yet another version.

[Asterin]

Download the new version here.

http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/~garrenjb/music/Dreamstone_Legend_2008.mp3

Download the old version here.

http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/~garrenjb/music/Dreamstone_Legend_FINAL.mp3.

(you may need to right-click and use Save-As to get smooth playback)

I don't know why I keep coming back to this stupid piece. Perhaps it is a lost cause.

It was rejected for submission about 2 months ago (with a request to re-submit) for various reasons.

Mostly, people wanted the guitars redone. Well, now they are redone.

I don't know if this made Dreamstone Legend any better. In fact, it may be worse.

Better, worse, whatever - that's why I need feedback. The guitar segments may be more muddled, or perhaps someone will notice a whole new slew of problems to throw at it. I've had a hell of a time equalizing this piece and trying to balance channels, etc. Either way, I'm sick of working on it.

If you haven't heard this before, it is a remix of "Battle With Magus" from Chrono Trigger.

[MadGonzo]

the track is pretty solid as it is, love how you added alot to the original scores with the different orch. sounds.

and the break up in the middle is smooth aswell.

feels like its finished to me

[tweex]

I agree with 2rad: this track is pretty solid.

I looked up the Judges Decision from your most recent submission attempt. Now, I haven't heard the first version of this, so I'll just do the best I can.

The intro is hawt. Very nice work here bro. It builds seamlessly. The attacks on the tremolo strings at the first are a little sharp. If this were my song, I would lower the attack a tiny bit so it doesn't sound quite so jarring. Pulling the velocity down on those notes would also probably do the trick.

Palpable said that he didn't like the drums that come in shortly after. I don't know how they sounded before, but I like the sound of them now. I think the drums could stand to come up just a tad and if you have verb on them I would bring it down just a bit. It will give a little more of a bite so the don't get swallowed up by the orchestral beast! If nothing else, it might help to put a high-shelf EQ on the drums. That will also give them a little more of a crisp sound.

Your strings sound a tad rigid/sequenced to me. Not much, but it seems more noticeable when the strings are doing stabs by themselves. Best place I can point out is when they first start at :46.

The piano sounds a little "tin-canny" at 1:55. It might could use a tiny more low end to even out the frequency spread. But not too much. You already have a big sound. The piano is NOT a deal-breaker at all but rather my personal preference. Someone else might be able to identify the "problem and solution" better than I.

The guitar is not very prominent in this. I'm not sure if that's what you have chosen to do in this version. It sounds ok but it's just too quiet for us to tell if it's supposed to be the lead/melody. I would try bringing it up a good deal when it's shredding out the main lick. A good example would be from 3:55-4:20. It's hard for me to critique it since I can't really hear it .

The ending is good. Builds up and then crashes to a finish. The guitar shredding that last note is a good idea, but it has really got to pierce the soundscape. As it is now, it just seems to poke it's head in for a moment. It also cuts out pretty fast. Again, this is my personal preference, but I would have it linger and resonate for a little while longer and then slowly fade out.

You may already be aware of this, but there is some hiss at the end of the track right before it comes to the end. I imagine it's coming from the guitar, but I'm not sure. That would be something to look into.

Bottom line, this sounds great. These ideas are all small things. Nothing major at all. Looking forward to hearing more of this.

[Asterin]

thanks for the comments -

yes, the drums have also been retooled significantly since the previous version.

I personally liked the filtered piano at 1:55 - it's not a bad piano sample, it's just filtered to squash certain frequencies and sound a tad more electronic. But perhaps it's not meshing with the whole, a number of people keep bringing that piano up.

After listening to it again, using some different speakers, I can hear that the guitar does need to come up a tad, and maybe the drums - my fear, obviously, is that if I get those elements up too high, the orchestra will be drowned out and ruin what little balance I already have. I keep hesitating when adjusting them for fear of making them too loud, whiny, muddled, annoying, etc.

[Sil]

I think the orchestra is string-heavy and needs a lot more brass. Even the horns are really tame and panned to the far extremes. Pretty much every cello part that carries the rhythm should do so with a good trombone section staccato, especially around 2:54. I think it's also because the bass guitar seems to drop out there. Also, the descending bass line at 3:03 needs a deeper bass sound. At 3:08 it sounds like the cascade effect in the strings needs brass sfzs on each entry (there are several methods of doing this.) Talking about brass staccatos, the ending definitely needs them.

This is merely all from an orchestration standpoint.