Liontamer Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 ReMixer: BlazingDragon Real Name: Trevor Crookston Email Address: Pianoman_tc@yahoo.com Website: http://www.blazingdragon.newgrounds.com UserID: 22108 Game: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Songs: Song of Storms (aka Windmill Hut), Serenade of Water Comments: This is my first time truly delving into the realm of ReMixing. I have always been a fan of the Zelda series and video game music in general. I also have slight experience playing the piano. Someone recently wrote that the "Song of Storms doesn't mix with Classical music". Upon reading this, I made it a personal goal to convince them otherwise. While this arrangement isn't classical in the stricter sense of the word, it is a piece for solo piano that has minor "classical" elements. I was very liberal in my arrangement of the source material. The original chord progression in "Song of Storms" was essentially thrown out the window and multiple other elements have been significantly altered. The genre, instrumentation, rhythms, tempo, and dynamics have been modified. Furthermore, I took the liberty of adding my own harmonies and transitions. While the piece itself is fairly simplistic, I did put a great deal of effort into subtle details such as dynamics and tempo changes. For the intro and outro, I utilized a rather unchanged segment of the "Serenade of Water". The entire song was mixed using an FL Studio demo. As such, I had to arrange this without ever exiting the program or turning off the computer. The piano sample was a free Direct Wave file I found on the internet. Everything was done was free software and my ears. The file is attached to the e-mail. ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/download_file/12209 - 63 "Serenade of Water" & 57 "Windmill Hut" From moment one, there are a ton of light audio deformations all over this encoding that make this a NO-go. Arrangement-wise, seemed reasonably fine, though the slow pacing made me feel the arrangement could have been further developed. The production could have used an improvement. Fairly solid, though the rigidness of the timing was apparent, and the overall piano sound could stand to be richer. Some suggestions on improving both would be great from the musician Js. Solid piece, Trevor. A good rendering untainted by pops could potentially pass, but the post-production needs work to achieve a better quality sound. Sounds like you better pony up for the full version of FL Studio. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 A lot of pops and crackle right from the beginning, you should find the cause of that. Otherwise the piano sounded nice albeit a bit muddy and rigid. Work hard with the velocities and equalizer to get that perfect sound. With a solo-piano piece the piano really has to sound good. Arrangement-wise this was fairly solid. Some of the ideas are simple but effective. When it evolves towards the end the different left hand movements doesn't seem very connected. Feels like blocks stacked next to eachother. Try to get all the transitions smooth, that will make this piece a bit more alive and less like a MIDI-sequence. When playing with polyrhythms like at 1:49, try to get it a little less quantized. The ending was alright but the transition into the serenade part could probably have been executed a little better so you really feel 'at home'. All in this shows a lot of promise. The first thing you need to do is getting the production right! Check out #ocrwip on irc.enterthegame.com and the WIP-boards for feedback about that. While you're at it you might be able to polish your arrangement a bit more to make it really shine (jot down some sheet music or buy the full version of FL already ;P). Good luck! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 I liked the arrangement quite a bit. The takes on Song of Storms were interesting, varied, and well-connected. And the Serenade of Water bookends also fit well. I didn't have a problem with any transitions in the piece - there were some unusual meter changes, but I felt they flowed reasonably well. I'm listening to this on monitors at home, but I dunno, I only noticed the clipping a couple times for extremely short amounts of time. If I listen very closely, I can hear more, but I feel like that's getting really nitpicky. I think worse clipping has been passed before. I'll take a listen on headphones tomorrow and see if that changes anything, but right now, I'm comfortable with this as it is. YES Edit (10/3): Yeah, I'm cool with this. The pops are more noticeable on headphones but I feel they are small enough that this can pass. Edit (11/2): I'm also guilty of using "clipping" synonymously with "pops". Often clipping can cause those kinds of pops, but here that's not the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 I'm listening to this on monitors at home, but I dunno, I only noticed the clipping a couple times for extremely short amounts of time. If I listen very closely, I can hear more, but I feel like that's getting really nitpicky. I think worse clipping has been passed before. Just to make it clear, I'm not giving this a NO only because of the clipping. I thought in general the production and sequencing could be better and coupled with the borderline-above-the-bar arrangement I feel a NO (resub) is relevant. It's a close call but that's my decision. Just clarifying Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 I'll give this one a listen in a bit, but just to remind y'all, that he did this using the demo of FL, meaning that conditional YES votes and NO resubmits are going to be like, a total kick in the balls Either hot or cold on this one, y'all. And yeah, man, you gotta save up and buy the program man. 'taint nuttin' else to say... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 Aight, so first of all, clipping is the wrong word altogether. Not trying to single you out or anything Anso, but "check your levels when exporting and use a safety limiter on the master to keep it from clipping" is not really valid advice. Here's the waveform. As y'all can see, there's plenty of headroom. Even during the louder portion at the end, the volume never broke .2 on either channel. I will say the track may have a tiny bit of over-compression going on, but that's not the same as clipping at all. Let's address these pops. I personally didn't notice them at ALL on my first listen. In fact, I didn't even really notice them until I read your votes. So after going back, I can hear some very subtle clicks at the attack of some notes, but he did say he was using a free Directwave patch he found online, so it's possible that's just how it was recorded. The track is a bit muddy at times, sure, but as far as the production goes, I personally don't feel like there's enough here at ALL to warrant a NO based solely on production issues. And usually, one or more of us is pretty good at singling out pops & imperfections, but I'm just going to have to lay down a biggiantwtf on y'all here. I don't know if we're listening to the same piece. It's like, if I was eating a piece of apple pie, and you said that the cherries were a little bit too sour. Aight, so there's my rant about that. Moving onto the remix content itself, first off, let me say that there's a pretty solid resemblance in my ears to Cristofori's Dream: Additionally, I'm not sure that "the piano is too rigid" bears enough weight in this piece. Yes, the timing does seem really spot-on in places and the standard 3/4 tempo with nothing venturing past an 8th note (like at 0:30) is a little bit uninteristing, but it's still a pretty pleasant arrangement, and it doesn't last too long before he changes something up. I will say that I agree that I don't think this arrangement reached it's fullest potential, but what's here is really nice. There is undeniable variance in the dynamics, in the rhythms, and in the overall song progression. And since (I reitterate) I do NOT hear any valid, weight-bearing gripes with the production, I'm going to go with my sympathetic gut (err, ear) on this one. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 Loads of accurate info and opinions Well clipping is the wrong word, sorry. The clicks are however very noticable to me, they annoy the crap out of me and it drags down the general production since it's solo piano and the piano has audible clicks at most attacks.. Honestly, to me it sounds like an old vinyl record in the background. The piano does not sound bad in itself, it's a bit muddy as I mentioned but it's the passable kind. However I still think the pops are just too much for me to be passing this as I feel the arrangement doesn't outweigh them. Sorry :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Hmm...First thing that pops to mind is that the sequencing is over-quantized. I think the arrangement is great. but in addition to the quantization, the mix gets a bit boomy. you might do well to take a bit out of the 125-250 Hz range. Keep at it, this is cool. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zykO Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 i had been mired in a long hiatus due to some unfortunate circumstances in my life that brought me a lot of sadness over the last few months. i already sort of expected (it happens all the time) that when i returned to voting, the very first thing i'd listen to would move me in a way significant to everything in some way. serenade of storms is really well arranged and i think gets a ton of its goodness from that and is so well arranged that, in fact, it survives the things that are hindering it. the track sounds a little boomy as vig puts it, its big in the soundfield and the clicks (not clips) are very visible early on in the sparseness of the piece's beginning. additionally, there is the concern that because it is a solo piano piece that the piano is left out to dry with such shoddy dynamics but the arrangement is so good, it almost doesn't matter. it certainly can't be accepted sounding like this in the mix but it is right there if its cleaned up. YEScond. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 YEScond. As Jimmy mentioned earlier it's YES or NO on this one since the FL demo doesn't allow saving. Sucks, doesn't it? :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted November 22, 2008 Share Posted November 22, 2008 unless he's still got his project file open after all this time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 The intro and the outro were nothing but lovely, but the production issues were very audible during the bulk of the piece, the use of dynamics and rubato weren't particularly believable to me. Once you have a full version of fl you can spend more time on this . There is quite a compressed sound to this also, whether thats the sample or something you added, I don't know, but compression doesn't have much of a place in a classical piano environment. The writing itself was very nice, and you've done lots to a minimal source. As it is, the production on this isn't a pass to me, and its unfortunate that you can't resub, but you should defiantly invest in a full copy of fl and submit more. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 I'm not listening to this on the greatest of sound systems, but I don't think the production here is bad. The piano sound is nice, as is the reverb and frequency balance. The main issue is the quantization as Vig pointed out. The dynamics are good but the timing and note durations are really mechanical. Simply getting a live performance of this would really improve things overall. Arrangement is solid, albeit simple. I would have liked to hear some jazzier chords and denser sections - a lot of the chords were very basic, and most of the left hand movement consisted of easy arpeggios. I think the arrangement is passable in its current form, but would't mind some more intricate and challenging writing. A more human performance is my main request here to get this one up to the bar, as well as ensuring there are no pops/clicks in the render. Nice work, though - please come back to this! NO, resubmit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcos Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 I can't hear any clicks or pops through my speakers...the arrangement is very good indeed, although the hard quantization does take something away from the emotion of the piece. The piano sample did cause the mix to sound muddy at times (this could have been helped by eq), however for a free sample it sounded good. Normally I would say this could be a quick resub/cond yes, but this would have to be re-done from scatch, which is a shame really. My advice would be for the mixer to invest in a full version of fruity if possible - because there are some real skills being shown off in this submission, even if this current version would need some tweaks before coming up to the OCR bar. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts