Liontamer Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 Nutritious, poolgirl Justin Medford, Amanda Medford NutritiousMultimedia@gmail.com http://NutritiousMultimedia.googlepages.com 16520 Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatorsk Now Isn't The Time This mix is part of the Tales project. I've provided a general breakdown of the source usage below as it may be difficult to pick out. I'm not sure whether or not chord similarities also play into it, though. :15 - :47 Delayed piano playing riff from bells in original :47 - 1:14 High strings playing violin part from original 1:00 - 1:14 Delayed piano again on bells riff 1:14 - 1:42 Vocals derived from bells riff in original 1:41 - 1:55 High strings again on violin melody 1:55 - 2:20 Vocals from bells 2:22 - 2:51 Vocals (pretty loosely) & Glockenspiel playing variation of the bells from OST 3:23 - 3:38 High string stabs based on bells part in OST bridge at :37 3:38 - 3:53 High strings based on violin on OST bridge at :38 or so 4:04 - 4:31 Vocals = bells 4:31 - 5:00 Chorus same as above 5:08 - end Delayed piano again on bells Recently, Larry posted in the Tales project thread (http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showpost.php?p=437549&postcount=2007) with the idea that some mixers on the project tackle some of the music from the Knight of Ratatorsk soundtrack to coincide with the release of the new Tales game Dawn of the New World in the US. The project had already been "finished" at this point, but there was still plenty time before release to give it a go. Kyle sent me a few songs from the OST and I ended up choosing Now Isn't The Time. When I begain on the intro to this song, I was intending to take a sort of ambient orchestral approach similar to several of my other remixes. As I progressed a bit, though, I started to get bored with the concept. So I bumped up the tempo and layered in some beats and synths, going a bit for a Hybrid-esque feel. I was taking a break during one of my remix sessions when suddenly a melody and lyrics popped into my head for the song. I hurried back to my desk to sequence out the melody and write down the lyrics that came to me. From that point, this song was my main focus for the next several weeks - developing and recording the vocals and instrumentation, getting great feedback along the way. One person commented that having female vocals along with mine would really help the mix. So, I enlisted my wife for additional vocal work on all three verses as well as the choruses (yeah she's awesome). This has, by far, been the largest song project I've done up until this point (I have something like 40 versions of the song saved). It's been a big strech for me with this being the first song I've produced with vocals, but I've received some excellent feedback and help along the way. Namely, from OA, Audio Fidelity, Zircon, and remixers on the Tales project. I'd especially like to thank my wife for putting up with me during recording sessions and helping me with lyrics. Geez, sorry for the long sub letter, I usually try and keep the short and sweet. Oh well. -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for providing the source! I still have no clue what you did with it. Sounds rather liberally used, but I'll come back to it. Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk Original Soundtrack - (114) "This isn't the time" Right off the bat, the parts need to sound cleaner and better separated. Once things picked up at :47, the soundscape sounded very cluttered. The cymbal shot at 1:01 was brief, but one example of something being too loud and drowning out the other sounds. The vocals at 1:15 sounded too dry. The tone of voice had kind of a Robbie Williams or Moby spoken word quality to them, so they're aight, but you need to mask the dryness. I liked the vocal interplay, but the vocals during the verses sound like a straight up dry mic recording with a tiny bit of treatment, and that's no good, IMO. They're generally too upfront and not couched in the soundscape at all, though stuff like the glitch effects where you pulled the vocals way back worked. Provided the arrangement checks out, rework the production to polish this up and this has a shot at passing. NO (refine/resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted November 25, 2008 Share Posted November 25, 2008 Beautiful source, and I thought your song was ambitious and equally beautiful. Reminded me a lot of Iris, a favorite group of mine. Unfortunately I found it hard to see the connections too, even with your breakdown. I can hear a general similarity in chord structure and to a lesser extent, melody, but the huge number of tweakings might take it too far. When I get a chance to sit in front of a keyboard or DAW, I'll try to get a better understanding of how you used the source. Initial impression is it seems too loose, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I can get tripped up by key transpositions, and I want to be as fair as I can to your song. Like Larry, I thought the production had some issues. Vocals were too far forward and sounded dry. Instruments like the piano and a couple of the louder synths took up a lot of room when they got loud, and the overall picture was cluttered at times. EQ might have smoothed out those issues. I can tell you've put a lot of work into this so far, but a song this ambitious requires a lot of work to get everything to sound right. I'm holding off on a vote until I can get a better sense of how the song breaks down. Edit (11/27): Alright, this is how it breaks down for me: 0:00-0:15: Original 0:16-0:47: Piano plays bells from original 0:48-1:15: String part similar to violin part, chords also similar 1:15-1:41: Original but similar chords 1:42-1:55: String part plays violin part from original 1:56-2:23: Original but similar chords 2:24-3:32: Original 3:33-3:53: Earlier piano part rearranged 3:54-4:04: Original 4:05-4:32: Original but similar chords 4:33-5:09: Original 5:10-5:43: Piano plays bells from original Sorry, Justin, but I'm really not seeing the connections you're drawing. I mean, none of the vocals sound similar to any part of the source to me. The intro and outro were strong enough connections, but the meat of your song had just a chord connection (and even that you modified a little). Chorus was entirely original as far as I can tell. If you or someone else can convince me that there's more I'm missing, I'm all ears. I thought the song was excellent and I'd love to able to pass it. The production issues are noticeable but not that hard to fix - might hold you to a conditional YES, in that case. Where we are now is the song is too liberal. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted November 29, 2008 Share Posted November 29, 2008 Toughie this one. I see how you try to pass off the vocals as an arrangement of the main bell pattern but it seems a bit too farfetch'd to me. Palpable's breakdown is where I can hear source so I have to agree with him about the arrangement. This is a very cool track but man, you could've put a LOT more source in there.. You know our standards by now and you could've pulled it off with relative ease I'm sure. Production is quite good. The issues mentioned were some I took as minor. The vocals worked but could've been just a little less dry. Also minor but something to think about is some additional separation, I thought that the strings especially took up a LOT of space. The arrangement's definitely holding this back. It's a great track but nobody could listen to this and go "oh hell, cool arrangement of 'This isn't the time'"! Sorry man :/ NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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