OCR01788 - *YES* Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess 'No Hope'

[Liontamer]

First and foremost

Remixer Name: The Vagrance

Real Name: Samuel Day

E-mail: Samuel.Day@gmail.com

Website: http://www.myspace.com/flimusicparty

Forum ID: 15461

Name of Game Arranged: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Name of Original Song: Midna's Desperation

Name of Remixed Song: No Hope

Comments:

I suppose this is the place where I talk about inspiration and all of that.

This remix was started immediately after I heard the song while I played through the game (very late to the field, I must admit), and when I say immediately I mean I hit the pause button and looked up the MIDI file for it. I hadn't done a Trip-Hop style in a long time and I felt like it was the right choice, and changing everything from 3/4 to 4/4 wasn't very hard considering how much space was generated from slowing down the tempo.

The lyrics for the rapping part because a lot of people in the WIP topic were requesting them:

"Get smacked with the invisible hand like Alan Greenspan

Don't try to mess with the new-age iron man

Sorry fellow men, sunshine will now be replaced

So please enjoy this twilight because there is no escape

The system provided has no concerns

So please be prepared to lose life and limb, or at least form

Don't bother the chief, I'm too great to scorn

Don't bother with her, (shes) too late to mourn"

So yeah, I hope you all enjoy it much more than my other, previous mixes. And thanks for all the work you do.

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The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Game Rip) - (70) "Midna's Desperation"

Interesting opening with some cool effects. The brief piano at :11 was a good touch, I liked the lo-fi effects on the beats from :23-:34, but they didn't mesh with the soundscape at all. The timing of the piano at :46 felt a bit odd; I see you were going for a slight rhythmic alteration, and it's OK.

The beat pattern you brought in at :34 went on for too long, IMO. You fattened up the sound nicely at 1:27, but the beat pattern, arrangement and texture was basically the same, so the piece dragged until 2:37, IMO. You gotta provide more substantive or dynamic contrast, otherwise cut the fat.

Took a little while to transition (nothing wrong, it just took a while) into a new section at 3:01. The rapping at 3:12 was poorly mixed to me; it needs to be more upfront and clean, IMO. Some of the effects were on the vocals were cool, but the regular voice didn't sound as good because it was a bit thin and untreated. You could have some light effects on your regular voice to give it some depth, but it was aight.

Went back into the instrumental. 3:59-4:11 got a bit on the cluttered side. 4:24-4:25 and 4:28-4:35 also got a bit blistering and distorted with the percussion.

Aside from reworking some of the beats to not seem too repetitive, I'd experiment with other ways to present the source melody. The original was a piano, and this used a piano produced basically the same way. It's cool if you want to do that, though you may want to do something more interpretive with the melody, since it still ends up sounding pretty close to the original with some minor modifications. Or, you don't have to scrap the sound choice entirely, but you could try varying the sound for part of the mix. Good base so far.

NO (resubmit)

[Palpable]

Awesome arrangement, very DJ Shadow-esque. The collection of instruments set a cool, brooding mood, while the beat chopping kept it playful. I can see where Larry is coming from with his criticisms, but I didn't feel this song was really lacking in any particular area. The source melody is kept pretty intact, but the rhythm is altered a lot, and I think there's a lot of personalization there. It's a completely different feel. All of the background elements are new, too. The textures could maybe have used a few more changes, but basically every time I thought it was going too long, you introduced a new element. You seem to have a good sense of when to change up. And even when you hold textures the same, there's a lot of subtle detail.

If there's a weak part, it's the vocals. They sound a little low-quality and the mixing is strange. I like the concept, but they sound a little too muffled. But it's, what, 15 seconds out of a five minute song? For the most part, this was great, and it definitely passes my bar.

YES

[zykO]

oh this certainly kicks a lot of ass.

this is my favorite theme from the game (surprise, Of Twilight and Redemption is of the same them) and i wish i had heard this in my head when i decided to remix it because i would have probably tried something like this. vinnie is dead on... very djshadow-esque ... the groove is great and full of texture... the breakbeats are all very yummy to the backdrop of that freaky sinister piano. surprisingly enough, this takes on a whole new approach to demonstrating the wierdness of the twilight/midna dynamic with an urban feel.. just as dark, just as awkward.

however, the vocals leave a lot at the door. the lyrics have a lot of muscle to em, i like how it all comes together but the delivery is bleh and the mixing leaves them muffled in the background... making them almost inaudible. bring them out more. the fact that there is a lot of breaking and stop and go goin on in the section requires at least that of the vocals.

all in all, this one is a great track and i'm very much in love with it. this is an entirely counter-intuitive interpretation of the source and for that alone, even, you get major kudos points. this just needs some work on those vocals to make them a little more clear. i'm giving you a YEScond because this is near completion

but you won't get a full yes from me unless something is done about the vocals. the way i see it: as it is, the vocals actually take away from the track while possessing an immense potential so it's sort of bittersweet. bring them up and they'll kick everyone's ass.

YEScond.

[anosou]

Tough one.

Love the piano at with the lo-fi backwards fx in the intro. The lo-fi drums way back did sound a bit out of place at first but when the main beat entered I saw what you were going for. The timing on the triplet piano sounds a bit odd since it completely lacks groove because of quantizing or such while the rest of the track is very shuffled. To me it's really annoying since it goes on the entire track but that's very subjective, it kinda grows on you.

The song feels a bit drawn out at times but I have to agree with Vinnie, most of the times I thought the piece was dragging out you introduced something new. The chord sequence at 2:14-2:26 will turn many heads but I think it was a nice touch that was well handled. The rapping drags the piece down. Sorry, but it does. It's strangely mixed and could use some high frequencies to make it clearer. I did love the pitch-fx though, keep 'em. Strings added to the soundscape, thanks for that. 4:18-> is pure genious and very original. No frequencies made my ears scream and that's always a good thing.

All in all this is pretty damn good even though the arrangement can feel drawn out. If you fix up the vocals a bit it will outweigh that and push this over the bar. It's a very cool track and it will fit like a glove between Skrypnyk and Radiowar's stuff.

YES(conditional on vocals)

[zircon]

Nice BT-style effects processing at the beginning. The drums here are really nice.. being a fan of vintage drums, this tickled my fancy. All the chaos and glitching of the drums at parts was nice too. The overall atmosphere is very chill. On the other hand, the slow triplets underneath the other 4/4 elements didn't really work. Additionally, around 2:24 there's a weird harmony with clashing notes. The reliance on the fairly mechanical sequenced piano for melodic lead was not necessarily the best choice either... I would have liked to hear it doubled with synth, or possibly replaced at points. One suggestion I have is to maybe span out the drum glitching more. Most of the time, the drums are playing a fairly simple pattern, then at times they go nuts. Why not integrate little glitched fills and effects here and there?

The rapping really caught me off guard. Introducing such a major element 3/5 through the song is a weird choice, and I don't think it worked, from the overall perspective of structure and flow. I agree with Larry that the vocals themselves sounded 'off' and could be cleaner and better produced. Carving out some of the low end would help. The harmonies didn't work that well, IMO, but the delivery overall was solid. Then they just stop in less than a minute.. again, from a structural standpoint, OI didn't think that was effective.

The ending "sequence" of the piece with all of the glitching was really cool, though I'm a sucker for that stuff. Again I would have preferred to see more of that scattered through rather than in huge breaks, but as a climactic ending, absolutely a nice touch.

The interpretation of the source is there, but I have to agree with Larry that you could vary up how you're presenting the source melody (not just in terms of instrumentation, which I suggested above, but also in terms of notes/rhythms.)

Definitely a solid sub, but I feel like it could use some extra polish to hit the bar. Main issues for me were the spot with the clashing chord, lead instrument & melody variation, and vocal production. Any changes above that would be great too but those fixes would push it into YES for me.

NO, resubmit

[Malcos]

Interesting preverb with the piano in the intro section. I like the overall sound with the lo-fi phat drum beat, solid bass and the piano - although as Another Soundscape mentioned the timing does seem strange at first, with the piano and the beat seeming at odds with each other. It doesn't sound wrong, but it does sound very quirky, which could be a good thing or a bad thing - as I listen more and more I get used to it. Production and level of arrangement is definitely up there, although perhaps some more melodic elements (other than just piano) would make this even more expressive.

The rap does sound muffled at times with the pitch shift effect, perhaps some eq would help it cut through so that the lyrics could be heard. The rap itself was unexpected though, making it's apperance quite late in the song and then only lasting a few bars.

I've seen other judges have mentioned DJ-Shadow and BT, this also has some elements from Yoko Kanno to me. Suffice to say, this is a very contemporary sound. Just some tweaks with the rap vocal processing and this would be a full yes from me, until then I'm conditional.

YES (conditional)

[Fishy]

Oooh ,the source for this is gorgeous. Quite via purifico.

Intro is pretty sweet. lo-fi drums at 0:35 worked well. I quite enjoyed the weird timing, just sounds like the broken chord in triplets and the melody in 4/4. Very cool warbly bass sound. Things get nice and full at 2:19 with the new sounds. Horrible chord at 2:24, thats just doesn't work, however you look at it.

Got a sweet little breakdown going on at 2:38, awesome glitching. Okay so that rapping was brief, and kinda muffled, but other then that is fits great, and the pitch effects gave them a welcome power. Everything from 3:37 onwards just took the mix to the next level and the source fits like a glove. Even got some bit crushing for the outro.

I don't think that the vocal processing had that much of a negative effect but it could use a bit of a clean up. Interpretation and the majority of the production was great. I'd say just a bit of cleaning up, and then fix that bizarre chord and we're good to go.

YES Conditional: Fix chord and clean up the vocals a bit

[big giant circles]

You know, on another day I might vote RESUB on this one, but I'll just say that I just sort of let it play, and I found that I enjoyed it well enough. On the technical side, the arrangement and adaptation to 4/4 are pretty decent. I could sit and pick out little quirks that I felt could have been done better, but all in all, I don't suppose they're really enough to make me feel like a definite NO would be appropriate.

I will say that while the vocals are aight, they don't really fit, IMO. But whatever, they're not bad either, they're just, unexpected.

At any rate, I love the effects, and especially the phased pad.

Nice work!

YEAH

[Liontamer]

I hit Sam with the votes to cover the conditional issues, and he definitely hooked it up. This is now good to go. Smack CHz and Malcos to weight in on his Chrono Trigger mix:

Naturally when I opened the file a whole bunch of problems came up but I was able to make some adjustments. Such as:

1. Re-processed the vocals, they should be clearer now.

2. Re-did the ambient drums I had going on in a couple of sections, they flow a bit better with the piece.

3. Added a couple of synth lines to edit the texture a bit after the break (also took out the phased pad during said section)

4. Took out the piano during a part and added a bit of emphasis to the string's playing of the melody (3:36-3:48)

5. Did quite a bit more drum work and re-arranged the patterns of them. Also added a couple of tiny tweaks to them.

Anyway, hope you all (just you?) like the slightly altered new version.

P.S. - Thanks to everyone for the comments, even to those who

heartlessly NO'd me (I kid..._)

P.P.S. - Any chance of my Chrono Trigger remix being in the n00bfl00d

as well or is it not faring as well?