Kingdom Hearts Simple and Clean Remix

[ResidentGeek]

I love the song "Simple and Clean" from Kingdom Hearts but they never made a full remix version of it. (The slow one is just... to slow.) So I decided to remix my own.

Right, so this would be my first remix of anything ever.

I'm using GarageBand (I know, I know. I just can't legally afford anything better right now)

On a Mac (Duh)

With a crappy sound card.

Please let me know what you think and how I can improve it.

Feel free to get as critical as you want. I'm a big boy. I can take it.

If anyone wants an aif, midi, or other format, let me know and I'll get it to you.

Thanks!

The remix is hosted at: http://www.mediafire.com/?xondozyvq04

[The Pezman]

First off, I'm a little unclear as to the remixed aspect of it. Seems to stick very close to the source.

Also, even with the most amount of counterpoint there isn't a lot going on. You need more voices and more things happening.

[Darklink42]

Oh wow. This needs a lot of work. First off, the beginning is fine up until the first instrumentation hits. Overall, I'd say that you need to work on the kinds and variety of instrument voices you're putting into it. I've got to be really honest, that first part scared me into thinking the whole song was going to sound like that. Up the quality on that part, please.

Fortunately the rest of the song got a little better in terms of over all quality, but I agree with Pez, you need to deviate away from the source more. This is more of a cover with tempo than a remix. Get away from the keyboard voice, experiment with other stuff and see what comes out of that. Spend some time getting to know the background of the song a lot better as well. Don't just focus on the singer's voice. I'd actually recommend remixing the remix in this case. More to work with over all in regards to sound and depth. The original is really basic and acoustic, and that will prove to be harder to work with.

[MadGonzo]

not sure about this either, the samples really collide (the heavy tranceSynth vs the clean guitars).

besides that its just an override of the original with different drums/beat and other samples, so yeah it needs alot of work.

You should remove the main melody for now, memorize the akkords and play with em create your own sound first with changes and drops, once you got your own song standing add the KH scores and blend them in till the right Remix factor is reached

EDIT: Props though for trying this theme, KH is very under-remixed

[ResidentGeek]

Thank you all very much for the critiques. Very much needed. I especially appreciate your comment 2radical on removing the melody and only working the chords till I have that down. Excellent idea.

DarkLink42, I agree with the beginning instrumentation. I've never made anything sound digitized (what I was aiming for) so it sounds rather... Bee like? I'm trying to fix it.

All in all, I want to get further away from the source.

As I said, I only started fiddling with Garage band yesterday.

I appreciate all the C&C so far. Keep it coming! I'll probably have an update here later on today.

Thanks again!

RG

[ResidentGeek]

Wow. You certainly learn as you go. Take two is a most definite improvement.

I've fixed the beginning instrumentation and added a lot more background harmonics. I've also recreated a lot of the melody from scratch based on the chords. (Thanks for the idea. It helped a lot.)

The updated version is here: http://www.mediafire.com/?yzpz1dzxnhv

AGAIN Please Comment AND Critique. A noob needs all the constructive criticism he can get.

[Uboichi2]

The melody is still pretty close to the original. My advice there is to just find a version of the song without any vocals in it and try out the number of different ways you can sing the melody. Forget the text, it doesn't have to fit. But especially rythmically there's so much you can do with a melody.

Other than that, the focus is way too much on one instrument. Just listen for example to Monstrous Turtles by Zircon. In that piece he uses 7 different sounds for the lead with 11 transitions from one instrument to the other. In comparrison: You're arrangement has 2 different lead sounds with only 4 lead sound transitions. You might be suprised why I take a Remix that's completely different in style from yours, but the answer is simple: They're comparable in length.

With music you basicly have 2 kinds of sound: background sound and leading sound. It's possible to have more than one kind of sound leading at the same time. Also it's possible to have multiple leading melodies. I advise you to listen to other remixers and analyze how long they use a leading sound before going to the next one and compare that length to the total length of the Remix. And count the number of different sounds they use. Do exactly the same for the background sounds. The background analysis might be even more important than the lead sounds analysis. A full analysis of Monstrous Turtles would probably be a full page long, just because there's so much happening in the background there.

Overall, you're sound usage is too simple (and clean ). Because of that your mix becomes repetitive. So listen to what others do, write it down. Then you can make a checklist for yourself.

Example:

[] Enough harmonic variety?

[] Enough different instruments taking the lead voice?

[] Are the lengths of the melody parts long/short enough?

[] Enough rythmic variety?

[] etc.

This kind of list isn't a rule to force upon yourself, but more like a guideline and you can alter it or ignore points on it based on your intentions.

Good luck!