Liontamer Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 ReMixer name: DJ MAX-E Real Name: Michael Staple Email Address: maxie_da_man_2007@hotmail.com Website: http://www.myspace.com/djmaxe100 Userid: 24346 Game: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles Song: Hydrocity Zone System: Sega Genesis The title of this mix is called, Breaking the Waterflow. Made this mix about a week ago. After I finished the whole track of Sonic 2, I was listening to one of Project Chaos' mix of Hydrocity zone called "HydroChill" on youtube. The song was so calming and nice that I decided to make one myself, but this time I wanted to go deeper into Sonic 3 & Knuckles and try to find some ways to make my mixes better than the original. For this mix I gave most of the instruments effects like Fruity Phaser, Fast Dist, etc. to make it sound underwater-like. I made my own hip-hop beat for this mix as well since I like the old skool hip-hop alot. No drum loops. Thanks to Project Chaos for the inspiration and doing proper justice to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Great Job! Plus, special thanks to my fans on YouTube. Hope you enjoy this mix. ------------------------------------------------------------- http://project2612.org/download.php?id=61 - "Hydrocity Zone 1" Ouch with the treble; you're hurting my ears there, so pull it back. There were a ton of other piercing frequencies, including the glassy melodic lead at :31. On the production side, the mix ends up being very taxing to the ears on headphones. There were some dynamics in place, but it didn't make up for the beats repeating ad nauseum. They're well-written beats, but they can't go on cruise control like this for nearly the entire track. You can click almost anywhere and the beat pattern is the same. The beats gets old no matter what other changes are going on around 'em, so think about ways to incorporate variations; it can be subtle, but it needs to be substantive. I see how you went for an underwater effects on some of the sounds, though I'd argue the usage of the effects went overboard. Then again, those effects not sounding right were more of a byproduct of the piercing instrumentation not meshing with the underwater-style sounds. That's what you need to fix. 2:07-2:47 & 3:43-4:35 was too much like a cut-and-paste from :31's section; you need some melodic variation to keep things fresh. As is, you could cut a lot of fat from the mix because of the sheer repetition. There was some interpretive comping-style writing from 2:49-3:13 (with a brief moment of awkwardness from 2:58-3:00; tweak that). Interesting idea for the ending at 4:35, by the way; good concept. Good base so far, Michael. Either cut some fat or add more substance to the arrangement via variations of both the background and foreground parts. Hopefully, the other Js can give you some production tips that would help make the textures more cohesive and less piercing to the ear. Keep working on this and see how much you can improve it! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted July 23, 2008 Share Posted July 23, 2008 Nice concept here with the underwater effects and the hip-hop beat. I thought it was groovy and the sections you added fit well into the picture. The melodies in those new sections get a little meandering at times and I think the writing could have been tightened up a little, but for the most part, it's fine work. Biggest problem for me with the writing is that the beat gets too repetitive. I'd love to hear a section with new sounds, maybe something lowpass-filtered and delayed, to fit that underwater motif. This song is way too piercing and busy. It might be that whatever distortion you're running your parts through is adding a lot of high frequencies, but you have to tone that down. When the lead gets into the highest notes, like at 2:54, it's screeching. The phased backing pad is also too much on the ears. If you really want to keep the sound, try mixing in more of the dry, unphased signal of the pad and reducing the phased. It'll still give you that sound, but a subtler version. Finally, the overall sound is a bit jumpy. Are you compressing the master track or running it through some weird effects? You might want to ease off there. Stick with this one, Michael! It has some cool qualities to it. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted July 24, 2008 Share Posted July 24, 2008 As Vinnie said, pretty cool concept. I do think the "underwater" Electric Piano is a little TOO muffled. Especially when you put it together with these really piercing isntruments Work with the EQ and listen on a few different headphones/monitors to really get the right feel for the frequencies. Loving the groove anyway. Nice take on the source melody with the lead synth. The trip-hop drums work well although they get a tiny bit repetitive as the song goes on. I'm going to echo some of larry's concern about the arrangement though, especially about the 2.07 and 3.43 part. Vary stuff up more, I know it's hard but it's worth it. You should look through your instrument and either fix some up or change them completely. Then look into how you can improve the arrangement. A resubmission that adressed those issues in a good way would definitely get a YES from me, because this is hella groovy /groovebias. NO(resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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