Zelda: OoT - Lost Woods (Happy Ganon Mix 2)

[Dash Myoku]

-----

- Update #1

Well, just started this today. As the title would hopefully imply, this'll be a darker idea to Lost Woods.

Imagine yourself walking into these woods at night, strange creatures making strange noises in the distance. Dark Imps are messing with you, which keep you on your feet.

Suddenly, they attack, but your party manages to fend them off. An eerie silence falls unto the woods as the sun begins to rise.

//The idea was slightly changed and implemented into Update #1. Credit for the voice work goes to my friend, Dashe.//

That's as much as I've gotten so far. I'm basically trying to write a story via music, but keep it as a remix as well.

Thoughts? Comments? Lemme know!

[Rozovian]

What party?

First half sounded relatively good, but I couldn't hear any source. Am I missing something there? Third quarter sounded terrible, worse than the N64 originals. Sorry Dash, too rigid notes. It sure had source, but it sounded like a midi rip. Last part sounded... mildly bad. It had source and wasn't too rigid. The whole thing does need to find middle ground, methinks, somewhere in between the original stuff and the source.

You've got some really cool drum ideas here. You could use some better hihat samples. Lace the drum part of the song with source melody, lose or redo the morning tune part, and you would have improved the track significantly.

You do have the story there, but the until sunrise, the story could jsut as well be in the Amazon, or on another planet. Nothing to tie it to Lost Woods, unless you used a theme I'm just not familar with. The idea, to write a story with music, works nicely. You've gto a good progression (at least conceptually). The music itself needs work, tho.

Bad, but not too bad. More source, more life, and a number of production tweaks, and you'd have something great.

[Dash Myoku]

Well, the source at the beginning comes in when everything picks up. It sure as hell doesn't sound like it, but the Clarinet/Bassoon are the chords of the original...just slightly modified to add a certain creepy-happiness to it.

And yeah, I wasn't really to...fond of the Dawn theme being in there, but a friend of mine insisted that I add it for "effect." I'll probably end up taking it out. Also...by rigid, do you mean too square or something? If so, I can definitely work out the kinks in that. Twas the last part I actually worked on before stopping for the day, so not a whole lot of work went into it. And the drums, the hi-hats were too harsh or loud? If that's the case, I'll change them.

Also, have you ever heard of Ayreon? They have a concept album in which there's narrative speech...not really narrative, more like the "I'm the one telling you how it is," sort of thing. Well, I have something similar in mind, but not quite like that. It's more like the the storyteller telling the story as the music progresses. Instead of like "Link/He/She" is doing this, is more so directed toward the listener. I just wonder if this seems like an interesting idea to implement.

Thanks for your time man.

-Edit-

In fact, I added the version with the previously mentioned idea.

[Rozovian]

By rigid, I mean that it doesn't sound like it's being played. It sounds like it's all the same velocity, and that's full velocity. With orchestral isntruments, you need dynamics - changes in intensity between notes as well as between sections.

Using the dawn theme isn't a bad idea, if you can convey night in a more tangible way. Try to imagine how night sounds like, try to write it more nightlike. It's ambiguous atm.

The voice work... While your friend might have a great voice later, it now just sounds too young to work, imo. I prefer songs without a narrator. If you have to telll the story like that, the music isn't good enough to work on its own. So work on the music instead. The best tracks make the listener imagine his or her own story. If you buddy can sing some vocals without lyrics, see if you can utilize that somehow. The human voice is more articulate than any instrument I know, and if you want a creepy night-feeling, some background vocal workcould really provide it. This is an example of what the human voice can do to a track.

Still, if you're aiming to have this on OCR, or practicing for OCR, do incorporate a more obvious source usage. You can use pretty much any instrument for the melody - and it doesn't even have to be the entire melody. Break it up, play it at half speed, just make it more obvious. Also, don't be afraid to use more than one source, if you use it wisely. A minor scale version of the Minuet of Woods, broken up, could fit it nicely.

btw, I still don't hear the source. Did the game have a separate music for night-time that I don't remember and can't find?