Palpable Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 I love the word "caldera" - palp Name: Trevor Burch ReMixer Name: Vibratissimo userID#: 26877 Game: Diddy Kong Racing (N64) Song: "Along the Caldera" Hello friends! As the end of August draws nearer and the dreadful reality that is the resumption of school creeps ever closer, I decided to reorganize all of my stuff...including my hard drive. With a fresh start in mind, I set a new goal for myself: to create a game remix before school starts! I chose a game that, in my opinion, receives much less appreciation than it should: *Diddy Kong Racing*. All the tunes are absolutely addictive, so I immersed myself in the soundtrack and chose the theme for the *Hot Top Volcano*. I was highly inspired by the ethnic contrast that this song offered in nineteen-ninety-whatever (I'm feeling old now ) and felt the desire to flesh it out entirely with my own special touch... I don't want to spoil *too* much about what I worked on this weekend (so much for needing a deadline), so without further ado, I leave you at the mercy of what my friend recently described as, "a belly-dancing slap in the face." I'ma go start applyin' for college. Enjoy! Class of 2010 ftw! Musically, Trevor a.k.a. Vibratissimo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hot Top Volcano Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 The piano was a little mechanical sounding, but otherwise things were clicking pretty well for me. There were good additions late ron that kept the second half fresh. Beats and builds were good, and the production was pretty solid. Some excellent synthing as well (yes, I realize that isn't a real word), and a lot of cool bonus sound effects and filtered bits. Sonically this is a very interesting track. Very cool stuff, I dig it. yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted December 26, 2009 Share Posted December 26, 2009 I can see why OA digs this Very cool sounding track, and I'm only about half way through it so far. Great job with the Indian-Electronica crossover. Amazing how the opening tabla groove manages to sound so electronic. And the pad synth was a good substitute for the sitar. Remix has a lot of energy and a pretty solid flow to it, I'm definitely enjoying it! One note, you've got to be careful on your big swells/hits. You can't just stack all your sounds on top of one another at loud volumes, because you get clipping/over-compression, and that did seem to happen pretty much everytime there was a loud swell/hit. Since you're pretty new to the game, I'll let 'em slide, but please be more mindful of that in the future. Learn to automate your volume levels and utilize compressor plugins so that everything plays nice together when it's time to share a limited space on the loudness table. Can't say I heard any gripes with the arrangement. Seemed a bit conservative, but I didn't ever feel the need to dissect it during any of my multiple listen/comparisons. With respect to my gripe about the volume peaks, welcome aboard, I say. SURE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted December 26, 2009 Share Posted December 26, 2009 Awesome source. Someone give us a straight up extended Bollywood ReMix of it for the win. Source finally kicked in at 1:04 an extended percussion intro. Can't say I was a fan of the percussion during the electronica. Something beefier and placed further back would have clicked more. The ethnic instrumental stuff meanwhile sounded strong; so good, that the quality disparity with the electronic sounds hurt this IMO. Nothing dealbreaking, but it stuck out to me. Overall, I definitely enjoyed the structure and writing here. I wasn't sure why BGC said the source usage was conservative, so I did a breakdown: :37-1:03, 1:04.75-1:17, 1:31-1:44, 1:57-2:10, 3:06.5-3:10, 3:16.5-3:18, 3:23-3:24.5, 3:29.5-3:31, 3:36-3:37.5, 3:42.5-4:12, 4:17-4:20, 4:23.75-4:25 That added up to 108.5 seconds of a 4:29-long track or about 40.3% of the mix. There were several other melodic sections, but I didn't hear any A-to-B connection to the source on those; correct me if I'm wrong. As is, it seemed like the original writing pieced together seamlessly enough with the source material that it was just accepted as source. The bassline from :37-1:03 was a clever bit of interpretation, a 6-note pattern based off the voice from :40-:44/:47-:51 of the source. Liberal, but the altered rhythm was recognizable to me, so I'll counted it. That said, the bassline was also present in other sections that had no other source usage (1:18-1:31, 1:44-1:57, 2:10-2:23 - 39 seconds total, as well as parts of 3:17-3:41 for 18.5 second total). Normally, I'd say that bumped the source usage up enough, but that pattern was so, SO far in the back and drowned out by the other instrumentation that the usage wasn't overt enough for me to give you credit. That's part and parcel with BGC's criticism that the loudest, densest parts ended up being very cluttered. The production needs some cleaning up anyway, so maybe that bassline can get some breathing room and be a more audible part of the track. It's a relatively tenuous source connection, so it really needs to be heard for the source usage to feel dominant. Lots to like here, but I'm gonna have to say hold on this one. If there's more obvious source usage I missed, then I could roll with it, but what I'm making out so far adds up to a NO (resubmit). This is really good stuff so far, but I'd like to see the production tweaked to better highlight the source usage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHz Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 Well, it's conservative in that, when the melody's there, it's not particularly modified, but yeah, original material left and right. It's decently incorporated with the source; some of the transitions to original stuff seemed a bit jarring, but that's probably just because I have this soundtrack memorized, so I'm used to the original's phrasing. The more pressing issue is that there's too much original stuff here. I didn't hear anything the ludicrously detailed breakdown in the post above this one didn't list. There's a huge chunk of original material starting at 2:10, where the only significant connection is that occasional accompaniment riff. More direct source usage would be a very big plus. No major production complaints from me. I agree about the clutter and the drumkit during the electronic parts, but nothing was super bad. There are some fairly cool ideas here, but the liberal arrangement is making me pass for now. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 I dig the intro. Great percussion, good reverb choice (plate?). In fact I love everything up to about a minute in. Sounds somewhat reminiscent of Shpongle and Infected Mushroom. Once the melody comes in, I'm not quite so thrilled. feel the melody is a bit far forward for the style. Mainly I think the issue is that the leads and melody in general seem a bit tacked on to what is a very slick sonic background and groove. Almost like this doesn't need to be a remix, and might be better off if you took out the lead, and added more of your own textures and ideas, and called it original. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted December 31, 2009 Share Posted December 31, 2009 Leads were a little weak, but the rest of the soundscape is killer. Great arrangement; awesome source choice too. Could have done with some more tabla, but I have indiabias. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted January 1, 2010 Author Share Posted January 1, 2010 My vote is somewhere between Vig's and Larry's. Excellent intro, really got my hopes up, but the electronica part was bland in comparison. The piano and sitar-ish leads seemed flat and really would have benefitted from the same level of expression that was used on the synths. There just wasn't enough going on there to make up for how simple they sounded. The drums weren't bad, but something heavier would have filled it out better. Also, more importantly, definitely too liberal. Larry, I don't know how you counted the bassline as deriving from the (awesome) voice bit, sounds totally different to me except for the first note. I think the YES votes should reconsider or point out what we're missing, I put this at something like 30% usage. I think all the right elements are in this somewhere. With some finer combination of the DKR melodies and the lovely Indian-ambience of the intro, this would be great. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted January 6, 2010 Share Posted January 6, 2010 A lot has been said so I'll keep it short. Arrangement is full of tasty original material but lacking in source. When the source IS present it's quite conservatively handled. It just didn't strike a good balance between source and original material. Production was overall good but I thought the instruments were a bit lacking. Electronic stuff was pretty vanilla and the sitar-ish thing was a low point for me. Percussion was overall really good though! You can definitely make this work, you just have to polish it some more! NO(resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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