Liontamer Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 Supercussionist Andrew Garma Ninfrk6590@yahoo.com Seikien Densetsu 3 Few Paths Forbidden The Composer is Hiroki Kikuta, the game system is snes. I made this song of of Finale and Garage Band. I did all the notation on Finale using percussion instruments as samples, then later made it into a midi file and transfered it to Garage Band. on garage band, i then added the introduction to the song. the song is mostly composed of synth instruments. the Drum part was all written out by myself, from fills, to the beats, and to the the solo in the middle. what inspired me of the solo area was this song jazz artist, chris botti, made. it had a part where the bassist was repeating the same thing over and over while the drummer soloed. i've always liked this song since i first heard it, and ive always wanted to hear a better version of it. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Note for the future that we have a 6.00MB filesize limit. http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=sd3 - "Few Paths Forbidden" (sd3-2-04.spc) I thought this was a decent concept with potential, but not fully explored. The synths for the melody were pretty lonely, the textures sparse in a bad way. That wasn't necessarily a problem for the intro, but once the buildup was done, :46 had no energy. Once the mix truly kicked off at :46, the drums were louder than the leads. Now, I like the drum writing, but you gotta push pretty much everything else up. 1:44 was a flimsy-sounding transition; add some more meat to it. Aside from some minor additions in the back, 1:52 was a complete cut-and-paste of :46's section. 2:48-3:54's section was basically a repeat of 1:43-1:51's section, but extended to put more focus on the drum writing. Cool stuff; pretty much the same issue that there was nothing going on behind it to fill out the background properly and the overall levels were too quiet. 3:54 went for a bigger close, a key change, and some slight sound differences with the lead once things picked up. This was still plagued by the same core issues though (sparseness/volume). Also, some sort of substantive melodic variation compared to what you had before would have been great anywhere, since what you have in place now is basically being cut-and-pasted. Rebalancing the parts, perhaps adding one or two more parts to flesh out the overall texture, and providing further variation to the melodic interpretation would get this concept sounding a lot more developed and polished, so I hope you decide to see what you can do with it. Looking forward to hearing more from you, Andrew. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted September 10, 2008 Share Posted September 10, 2008 I think Larry's covered most everything I'd say. The intro sounds fine, but the volume levels stay about the same even when the song takes off. I think there should be more dynamic curve there, instruments getting louder as the song builds. The overall levels are very quiet anyhow, so you have room to get louder. I think most of your arrangement ideas are cool (even the drum soloing works for the most part, sometimes it gets a little much) but I'd like to see more melodic interpretation too. There's some good countermelody call-and-response stuff, but some bigger changes to the melody wouldn't hurt. The biggest problem is that the soundscape doesn't sound that full. I think it's some combination of using thin instruments and having the instruments be too distant, possibly because of your reverb settings. It feels like it needs more bite. I'd push the instruments closer to the forefront, and maybe try to layer sounds or get better sounds. Yeah, I'd like to see you take another shot at this, Andrew. There's a lot of good ideas in place that need better execution. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted September 16, 2008 Share Posted September 16, 2008 Nice concept for sure. As my brown colleagues said before me, the balance is a tad off. I don't think the drums are that loud compared to the rest although I must say I'm in favor of loud drums. However the melodic elements really need to be more up front to keep this from getting stale. Your sounds are on the thin/lifeless sound. For example the bass sounds like a cheap general midi-soundcard and the drums could be beefed up quite a bit. For example the hi-hat sounds very flimsy. Something else that struck me was that no matter how advanced the rhythm sequencing was, velocities wasn't really utilized to full effect. For such a drum centered piece I would've expect more careful programming of the drums. Try getting some better samples that are also velocity sensetive as it would really help your drum track feel like a drumtrack instead of stiff (but creative) MIDI-programming. Arrangement-wise you have some good ideas, drum solo's nice and someting not often seen. Some more melodic interpretation would turn this up a notch, maybe some edgier synth lead arranging the source melody. Work on making the arrangement feel cohesive without feeling repetitive! Variation is the key. The main problem for me is how weak this is in the sound department. Try working with EQ/Compression while balancing your parts to perfection. Other than that I recommend looking up some fresh samples to keep the texture full (bass and drums especially). This shows a lot of promise but will need more work before I can pass it. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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