Sonic Green Hill Zone Remix WIP

[Iapetus]

Hey, long time lingerer here. I am working on a cover album of Sonic's classic music pieces and I was wondering if perhaps what I am doing is suitable to be showcased on OCR. You guys are a talented bunch which I may not need apply, but I thought I'd ask nonetheless.

http://anamnesismusic.blogspot.com/

Any criticisms or thoughts.

[Pander]

First Listen-through Impressions:

0:00 - 0:17 - Nothing grabs me. Slow. Percussion is very timid. Lonely chords that don't flow well. Bass is only there to pass the time.

0:17 - 0:42 - Lead sounds pretty good. A good mellow take on the green hill melody. Finally in the 0:30's all the instruments blend together to something solid, if not spicy.

0:42 - 1:40 - The instruments continue to meld together well, albeit repetitiously. A minute is a long time to go with basically the same central melody looping without break. The only thing that could keep it afloat would be great vocals, and I tried my damndest to interpret them as great, but they just didn't work. I tried to pretend your voice was a mix of maybe Billy Corgan (doing high octaves, not his more gutteral growling) and Wayne Coyne (of the Flaming Lips). You don't push your voice out, whether by intent or lack of range, and as a result the lyrics don't help the metronomish melody.

1:42 - 2:24 - Hey, where'd this come from? This is a VERY good uptempo counterpoint for the the vanilla start to the song. While the notes could use a little jazzing up (some sound wrongish, too, like the one at 2:09), the piano adds a great touch. It's almost like a later-works Blink 182 piece at this point. When your voice is part of a chorus, it works better. Chanting "go sonic" for 40 seconds is servicable from an aural stand, but I'd rather see a little mixing up of the formula on the repeat so it's not just the same 20 second snippet repeated.

2:25 - 2:37 - Too quiet. Bump something up, keep another instrument in the picture, some distortion, do something. The guitar just isn't active enough on its own with that arrangement.

2:38 - 3:04 - You show some good in the vocals here, the last line is one where your voice works with the song (around 3:02). You also expose yourself with bits like at 2:49, 2:54, and 2:59.

3:05 - 3:10 - The lead comes in nice, but the voice is completely goofy.

3:11 - 3:20 - The lead stays...and stays...and stays.

3:21 - 3:38 - Not too much going on.

3:39 - 3:50 - Good lead-in. This is one of the better arrangements in the piece.

3:51 - 4:45 - This chorus represents what you seem to do best in the mix. You seem to display the most confidence in these sections. The singing is almost superfluous, but the interplay between the piano, guitars, and (finally) active drums really reminds me of a power pop song that'd get airplay for Green Day or Blink.

I feel I've been overly harsh in my criticism here, it's a good song overall. I'm just not going to give a gold star for the singing segments, and parts of the song are too brutally slow and quiet. When you do kick it into action, it's eminantly enjoyable.

Second Listen-through Impressions:

Intro - Not as onerously boring as I listed above. The first 20 seconds are still slow, but not as rough as I indicated above. I'd still recommend changing (abbreviate or intersperse more life)

Singing - Still not a strength. I know where it's leading to though, so the repetitive rhythm doesn't feel as long as the first time.

Chorus - Still the highlight.

Slowdown - Still disjointedly slow and meandering. I'd recommend giving it a bit of life.

Closeout - Interesting, good. There are about 6-8 seconds too many on the fadeout (song is 4:45, but really ends at 4:38ish. Not a big issue, but something maybe to hammer out).

So yeah.

Three distinct parts of the song. A lazy, dream-like instrumental. A vocal-driven verse. An up-tempo chorus. Give the lead-in a bit more zazz (more percussion mayhaps), cut out the vocals, find an arrangement to break up the chorus a bit, and add a little variation in there and you're set. The instruments sound fine.

The idea is creative. When I think of the 'green' levels of sonic, I think 'introduction to speeeeed'. The green levels are typically filled with loops, corkscrews, hills, and few baddies. So when you have a guitar-driven remix, I'm expecting uptempo rock. This remix, however, seems to keep it in either neutral or first gear most of the way through. It sort of reminds me of a less-mastered Sonic analogue to Evahn's recent relaxed take on Super Mario Bros 3. It's atypical, and that can be exciting. This one needs some tweaking however, some adjusting of levels and arranging. (It sucks to repeat this, but I really find the vocal verses hard to deal with.)

Keep at it for sure.

[Iapetus]

Thanks a a lot for the input, I appreciate it. I agree the vocals are weak - something I'll have to improve. I was going for a Blind Eyes sort of style, but perhaps it doesn't work here. I was originally going to make it all instrumental, but the chorus spoke to me and I felt the need to add more.

I'll be sure to update soon with changes.

[Peconomusman]

Agree with the vocals. I never feel that the song is boring really. Good work imo...little tweaking and it'll be better. As is I would still listen to it.