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*Resubmit* Graveyard Promenade Zelda OOT Shadow Temple


Sammy D
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I've got to say, this is pretty cool. I've been stumped on coming up with a concept for a shadow temple / nocturne of shadow remix for awhile now, so this kind of blew me away. The textures and the progression/loop you made out of the 3 note motif from the shadow temple is so good it makes me feel undead just listening to it :D I wasn't feeling the synth lead you used in the second half of the mix, it broke the mood for me, but overall this is damn cool.

Here's to an awesome start :nicework:

Definitely looking forward to some updates...

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Cool tune!

I like this a lot. A slightly spooky open atmosphere!

If I could offer any sort of advice from my opinions, it would be to raise the overall volume a touch, and to maybe try to add in an extra harmonizing melody in the second half.

Also, the echoing drum beat you have going is great, but the hard 'click' of the sound seems to clash a little. I wonder if you can dampen that sound without compromising its role in the song.

Great job! It's a wonderful listen. I FEEL like I'm in a graveyard :-P

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I am not a remixer, as you know, so take this for whatever you deem it worth. Also worth noting is that I usually approach music from a more emotional and less technical standpoint.

What is your goal with this remix? What are you trying to convey?

What I hear is ambience, which is difficult to do fittingly in a single as opposed to in an album. To my ears, this doesn't go anywhere. It has a start that could go places, but what follows after about 2:00 doesn't seems to tread any new ground or impart any significance; the song seems to last longer than its idea. And even then, I'm not sure what this track had in mind.

My critique is most likely not a fair assessment from your perspective. After all, where, exactly, is a brooding, contemplative track supposed to "go"? In the context of an album, I could agree, but not as a standalone track. More than anything else, that is a hardship in trying to write for the genre. Though, to be honest, folks like Gray have managed to do so... and still have some umph behind their music.

You have chosen a source devoid of development, which puts the onus entirely on you to develop it. Whether done by incorporating other instruments or by evolving the original melodies (if you'd call them that), or both, this needs further development before (I think) the judges will pass it. Frankly, right now, the original was tighter and had far more impact.

And that takes me back to my original question: what, exactly, is your purpose? You have competence in production (or close enough to submit for critique, at least), but a good work requires a singularity of purpose.. or so I suppose as a listener. What you have now comes across, to me at least, as a barren landscape. Perhaps an ominous one as well. But what of it? I'm in this graveyard for four minutes, but am I scared? Am I remorseful? Am I reverent? What, after four minutes, am I supposed to feel or take away from this experience?

To put it succinctly: what you have created is great music for a one-time walkthrough of a graveyard, no other emotions attached. If that is your goal, then you have achieved it. In an album, where the context fits: perhaps perfect. As a single: not engaging.

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I originally started this as part of a soundtrack for the game I'm making, walking through some sort of desolate, foggy place. Then I just kept adding layers. The idea came to me while thinking of what if Shadow temple actually had a song in it, and I took it's motif, and turned it into something ominous but not as scary. I wanted to convey a sense of harmless danger, corpses that wanted to make you stay, but couldn't do anything about it, and as you're leaving, they start screaming in futile. That's what I take from the end anyway. I'll continue to develop this until I get feedback that people think it's good for submission, or I run out of ideas.

Update: Just added a few extra melodies to the end to draw on more of the source content, upped the volume, and added a few nuances that should make it more dynamic.

As always, It's on my blog or you can download it.

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The choir sounds happy, the lead sounds happy, the drums sound like a march. This is anything but "harmless danger"; these "corpses" are actively seeking you out, optimistic about their chances and far from helpless.

Don't get me wrong, I love this thing. But you totally missed the mark you were aiming for. I encourage you to run with it if you're not too in love with your concept.

And, to K.B., this song isn't about what you feel. This song is from the perspective of the presence which it represents.

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I listened to this again on mid-quality speakers as opposed to low-quality headphones and now the percussion is pure sub-woofer and everything but the guitar is like twice as quiet. I must say it loses some appeal.

Should I lower the volume on the bass? For some reason I'm just stuck. I don't know how to do what I want to do with this. And you're right. I've been making this song completely with headphones. I can't turn up the sound on anything without it becoming too distorted. And I have a shitty sound card. So I have to encode the damn song every time I want to hear what it actually sounds like. Ahhhh. I'm going to best buy damn it.

Edit: Apparently it wasn't my sound card, it was the fl studio demo that wasn't working with Kore player. I just tried the Ableton live demo, and it's working 10 times better. Ableton is as easy to use, I'll use it instead.

The guitar sounds a slight bit dischordant. But I like the sound. Is it recorded or a synth?

Also, the piece is a bit repetetive. I'd heavily recommend adding variation; this has alot of potential for that.

I look forward to a finished product =D

I believe it is sampled, but I heavily modified it with effects.

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Sorry about some of the stupid shit I said in my last post; I came off being far more critical than I meant to. I think I should put something in my sig to the effect of "kindly ignore all posts made by me after 11pm". Or just not be a drunken idiot... or at least not a negative, serious one!

The additional effect that starts in at 1:45 makes this a lot more ominous and dynamic. I like it. This still meanders though; the guitar or low-pitched pads could use a new line at some point during the track. 2:00 or 2:40 would be a good place for this. I partially agree with Spakku in that the 'choir' (warm pads?) don't fit. I think the other instruments do though, and that the timbre of the choir doesn't mesh well with the others. Well, the guitar isn't spooky by itself, but I think it works. I suggest a fade-out on the drums at the end; the cut-off doesn't sound right to me. I don't know about the volume levels; they sound good to me on my low-end speakers and subwoofer.

Anyway, this is cool. I still think it's missing something and that it wouldn't get yes's as it is right now, but it is a creative take on the original with potential to be even better. And yes, it would go very well in a game, or at least I think I remember you writing something like that in the post you deleted (which, btw, you posted just a half hour before I came back to delete my crap post... I decided to leave it after I saw you had responded).

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Well the point of the choir was to bring in more of the source, to give it a little bit more of a connection and say "Hey, this is pretty close to the original's choir". But you're right about changing up the guitar around 2:00. I'll see if I can come up with something.

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  • 3 months later...

Huh, surprised I didn't see this back in October... Man, I haven't been as active in this forum in quite a while. Shame - I would've loved to have heard this and commented on it back when it would've been helpful (a.k.a. before the J's got to it). Ah well, still interesting to hear something from someone that I previously thought was an 'off-topic only' member, lol.

Alright, let's see, here...

It's nice, overall - the ambient sound is effective. The minimalist approach would've worked for either a 2 minute or a 20 minute song (if you were going for a hardcore minimalism approach), but not for a 4 minute song. After that 2 minute mark, it wears on the listener quite a bit. There is variation in the textures, but because of the limited instrument usage it seriously is nearly unnoticeable.

The choir is okay, but I feel the sample is a little bit mechanical, as it stands right now. It actually sounds like it came from the N64 (which isn't a good thing). You need to play with the velocities and volumes a bit more so it doesn't sound like the same thing repeating as much.

PARALLEL 5THS, LAWL! Yeah, I despise them (as anyone here could tell you), but in this context they sound quite good. It gives the music the haunting feeling that it has... they were in the source, weren't they? I don't know the source that well, so I can't say for sure. Whatever, point is that the P5ths are fine.

Otherwise, listen to the J's points - the direction being a bit ambiguous being the main point of theirs. Keep it up, and it's nice to see you in this neck of the OCR woods :)

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