Sonic & Knuckles 'Mushroom Funk'

[The Glock]

Hey everyone! First time poster, long time follower. Anyways,

http://www.tindeck.com/audio/filestore/d/dmxu-Nunez%20-%20Mushroom%20Funk.mp3

This is a remix of Mushroom Hill Zone.

I want to first off say that I am not any kind of musician or DJ. I can't read music, or distinguish the difference between a E-Flat or a D-minor. I'm just a guy who's been screwing around with FL Studio for a few years and really impressed with some of the work here, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Personally, I've felt there haven't been enough Sonic remix with enough "soul" in them. So I guess this my shot at it.

The piano is just a placeholder until I can find something that sounds better. Maybe a little echo?

It doesn't get recognizable until near the end. I was also thinking of putting some lyrics mixing in here, make it a little more hip-hop. I'm really having a hard time figure out where to go with this...

Personal Critique

ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION

[x] Too liberal?

STRUCTURE

[x] Not enough changes in sounds

[x] Too repetitive

[x] Too short

The sample is from "Grover Washington Jr. - Knucklehead"

I am totally down for any collaboration on this! If you want to try to throw your hat into the ring, here's the sample and the FL file:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?c2jydrmsghw

Keep it pumpin'!

[Rozovian]

No source comments from me today, but you've got your own analysis. The repetition is really gonna hurt this. There's some really cool bits and pieces of this, such as the bass close to 1:00. Adding lyrics would help with the repetition, but there's still a bit of a risk making it cheesy that way. Plus you need good text, good voice, good recording stuff, and good processing to make it all work. If you're up for it, go ahead. Worth trying regardless.

There needs to be more stuff happening, and you can add more source through that. Adding backing tracks, especially pads, can really change the sound of a track, so add them, vary them, and don't use them everywhere - that should take care of some of your repetition issues.

Drums add to the repetitive nature of the track. Add fills, have more stuff going on with the drums, ghost hits... Pan the ride, and have a crash or something panned opposite it that you can use. Avoid hardpanning anything - the wah guitar is just noise in the right channel when it's that far right.

Sound choices are fine, as far as I can tell. The autopan on the electric piano is a little annoying, but it works in the soundscape. Adding an echo could improve it, but it could just as well wreck the sound. Experiment, see what works.

You seem to have gotten a good start. If you say this is too liberal, you only need to add source to fix that. People who copy the source have to work in original stuff to make it work. You've already got that done. Still, you need more stuff, more variation, more length... I don't think it sounds the same throughout, and by using different chords, different keys, moving stuff up or down an octave, or simply leaving something out you're changing the overall sound throughout the progression. You don't need a dozen different sounds to make a good remix, all you need to do is to vary how you use them.

So far, so good.