Super Mario 64 WIP-Metal Mario (Is it worth continuting work on?)

[Sound Test]

Hey guys,

I've been picking up a lot of tricks of the trade when it comes to mixing over the past couple of months. You'll be hearing me at least twice on the Link's Awakening project that's in the works, but one of my mixes that I worked on prior to really understanding more fundamentals was this Metal Mario mix. I auditioned for the Mario 64 project and got rejected as the judge thought that I didn't include enough source material. Unfortunately for me, I completely disagree. The original Metal Mario piece has very little source to create a melody from, even less than a catchy gameboy tune. So, I have to ask, if I polish this up, do you guys think it's worth submitting?

Here's the track: http://uploadingit.com/d/LXZ8GTYOW5WVYT3N

Thanks for your feedback.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Hey guys,

I've been picking up a lot of tricks of the trade when it comes to mixing over the past couple of months. You'll be hearing me at least twice on the Link's Awakening project that's in the works, but one of my mixes that I worked on prior to really understanding more fundamentals was this Metal Mario mix. I auditioned for the Mario 64 project and got rejected as the judge thought that I didn't include enough source material. Unfortunately for me, I completely disagree. The original Metal Mario piece has very little source to create a melody from, even less than a catchy gameboy tune. So, I have to ask, if I polish this up, do you guys think it's worth submitting?

Here's the track: http://uploadingit.com/d/LXZ8GTYOW5WVYT3N

Thanks for your feedback.

Most of the arrangement IS QUITE LIBERAL, dude.

You use the original melody, sure, and it's short, but you don't use it in a way that's dominant (for 2/3 of the mix you use it as background). You do include other Mario themes, but I think the project judge was looking for a decent amount of Metal Mario dominance.

In judging, it's roughly a 50-50 ratio of source - liberal.

In this project, it was probably roughly a 50-50 ratio of metal mario - everything else.

For submitting to the site, I think some use of reverb and delay (and some other cool effects) would polish this nicely and then I say you should submit.

[Sound Test]

Thanks for your input neblix. I guess if I want this mix to be submittable, I'll have to make the melody more dominant. It's just one of the most repetitive melodies in the history of games. It's fun, sure, but it's damn short. The other Mario theme you heard was probably the starman theme as the original Metal Mario track is that tiny melody on top of the starman theme. That's all there is to it, so the liberalness of the track felt necessary. I'll probably come back to it eventually.

[Sound Test]

Update!

I have come back to this song and added a lot of flair to it. There is a lot more melody arranged in with everything else I had before plus some other new stuff. All comments and constructive criticism are welcome. The file is a 320 kbps mp3 file. I've played the wav and this back to back, and the mp3 file doesn't sacrifice too much.

http://uploadingit.com/d/IOGGDGULMJLSNDS0

[progressive]

First of all, in response to neb, the metal Mario source is only 14 seconds long, of which only 7 seconds contain any melody. So there is no question a remix of this song will be "liberal."

I think you've gone above and beyond here as far as experimenting with new ways to treat the source. As for the final product, however, it's fun and creative but not ready for submission. Production values need to improve and you need to present a more coherent, balanced remix. The voice parts about Italians, which I'm assuming you recorded yourself, are actually a nice touch alongside the bombastic sound effects. It all adds up to a kind of shnabubula-ish sound, but if you decide to go that route you'll need to up the tempo and get even more frenetic to keep things interesting and overcome the limited source.

Is this worth working on? Yes, anything is. You can't help but learn as you go.

Is it worth submitting? Not yet, and it might never be, considering the difficulty of the source.

Is it worth listening to? Yes, it's fun, and you can tell that you've put a good amount of time and work into it.

Good luck with this, but if you decide to start something new with a different song I don't think anyone would blame you. It's a tough source, and you've got balls to take it on.

[Nabeel Ansari]

First of all, in response to neb, the metal Mario source is only 14 seconds long, of which only 7 seconds contain any melody. So there is no question a remix of this song will be "liberal."

I never said it couldn't be liberal. There is a limit to how liberal something is. Serenade of water is 5 seconds, but we have a remix of that, don't we? Song of Storms is 5 seconds, and we have a mix of that, right?

[progressive]

I never said it couldn't be liberal. There is a limit to how liberal something is. Serenade of water is 5 seconds, but we have a remix of that, don't we? Song of Storms is 5 seconds, and we have a mix of that, right?

I'm not going to go any further than to say that neither of those songs is five seconds long (Serenade of Water: 18 seconds; Song of Storms: 21 seconds) and that neither of them contain only six notes in the entire melody as this source does. But I'd be happy to hear your explanation of the "limit to how liberal something is" or your ideas for "metal mario dominance."

[Nabeel Ansari]

But I'd be happy to hear your explanation of the "limit to how liberal something is" or your ideas for "metal mario dominance."

I'll answer the first. I don't feel like remixing Metal Mario, therefore I have no ideas. But there is a way: there always is a way.

As for a limit to how liberal something is, judges take into account how much source is present. They use 50 - 50 ratio as a guideline, usually when the source usage is less I'm pretty sure they tend to reject a little more than when they do if source usage is more.

[Sound Test]

First of all, in response to neb, the metal Mario source is only 14 seconds long, of which only 7 seconds contain any melody. So there is no question a remix of this song will be "liberal."

I think you've gone above and beyond here as far as experimenting with new ways to treat the source. As for the final product, however, it's fun and creative but not ready for submission. Production values need to improve and you need to present a more coherent, balanced remix. The voice parts about Italians, which I'm assuming you recorded yourself, are actually a nice touch alongside the bombastic sound effects. It all adds up to a kind of shnabubula-ish sound, but if you decide to go that route you'll need to up the tempo and get even more frenetic to keep things interesting and overcome the limited source.

Is this worth working on? Yes, anything is. You can't help but learn as you go.

Is it worth submitting? Not yet, and it might never be, considering the difficulty of the source.

Is it worth listening to? Yes, it's fun, and you can tell that you've put a good amount of time and work into it.

Good luck with this, but if you decide to start something new with a different song I don't think anyone would blame you. It's a tough source, and you've got balls to take it on.

Thanks for your input on this. I just got an email from a friend of mine who shares some of the same thoughts you do about the mix, and he doesn't like lots of the samples I used. Unfortunately, everything I have except for FLStudio is free, and I have no music budget. I did record the lines about italians myself. That was fun. I even looked in the Mario 64 manual to see if Mario officially turns into metal when he puts on the cap. There was no word on it, so I figured I wasn't betraying canon. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it despite the things you pointed out.