OceansAndrew Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 ReMixer name: Dustin Branscum Real Name: Dustin Branscum Website: http://www.myspace.com/dustinbranscum Forum User ID: 24328 Name of game arranged: Red Zone Name of songs arranged: 'Title Music' and 'Night Mission' Original composer: Jesper Kyd System: Sega Genesis Release Year: 1994 Additional comments: (Copied from my YouTube page) This is a remix of "Title Music" and "Night Mission" from Red Zone for Sega Genesis. The original song was composed by Jesper Kyd, whose work on the Sega Genesis is arguably the biggest influence on my overall guitar style. This remix is still a work-in-progress and may change with feedback from the OverClocked ReMix community. As it stands now, though, I'm really happy with this version and hope the changes I have to make, if any, will be minor. I did this mix for two reasons. Firstly, to pay homage to the game composer who not only made, in my opinion, the best soundtracks ever to grace the Sega Genesis, but also had such a major influence on how I write music and play guitar. I grew up playing songs from Red Zone, Sub-Terrania, and The Adventures of Batman and Robin, and it's safe to say that Jesper's work has had more of an impact on my guitar style than even my favorite bands, if only slightly. The remix was done to fit the metalcore genre, which is the style of music I am most familiar with playing. I was on a really big August Burns Red kick before writing this mix, so it ended up influencing the final product a lot. The other reason for making the mix is I'd like to submit the track for OverClocked ReMix, a video game music arrangement community that I have been a huge fan of since '04. To get a remix accepted by the judge's panel is one of my highest musical goals. The track was recorded in FL Studio 8, and finished up in Audacity. The drums are programmed using a tweaked FPC preset. The guitar I used was a Schecter Tempest Custom with EMG 81/85 pickups. The bass is a Squier P-Bass. Both the guitar and bass were recorded through a TonePort UX2. The sounds are from Soundsnap.com. I posted this song a little while ago in the WIP section, and didn't get any responses. But the original composer liked it, which really boosted my moral about submitting this remix. source: source 2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHz Posted February 6, 2010 Share Posted February 6, 2010 I've never really understood how the Genesis could handle playing Red Zone's soundtrack without the console exploding with enough force to bring about the end of the planet. Rather fantastic, brutal stuff. The source riffs and melodies used aren't modified all that much, but these are some massive source tunes, so here's what I heard for everyone else's benefit: 0:20-0:30 - guitar playing intro riff of Titlemusic 0:42-0:52 - synth playing same 0:58-1:18 - rhythm guitars playing 0:33 bass riff of Titlemusic 1:28-1:38 - lead guitar playing 1:41 melody of Titlemusic 1:58-2:28 - same synth from earlier returns, it's almost inaudible from 2:08 on though 2:18-2:23 - lead guitar playing intro riff of Titlemusic 2:29-2:34 - rhythm guitar playing the intro riff of Night Mission (the rhythm of it only) 2:34-3:04 - lead guitar playing 0:04-0:33 melody of Night Mission 3:04-3:24 - lead guitar playing 3:28 melody of Night Mission 3:29-3:39 - guitars playing intro riff of Night Mission 3:45-3:57 - guitar playing 2:44 melodic riff of Night Mission I probably missed some, but that's already at 60% without even counting the fifteen seconds in 2:08-2:28 when the synth is playing but barely audible and there's no other overt source usage, so I'm not going to scrub the sources. The arrangement was pretty decent. The METULization of the title theme was real nice. The Night Mission portion felt a little awkward to me in places, especially when the melody suddenly comes in suddenly at 2:34, but not too shabby overall. The guitar performance could be tightened up a bit; 1:43-1:48 in particular slips noticeably. Production is by far the biggest problem area. The balancing especially needs some work, as the rhythm guitars have a tendency to drown out everything else. The machine gunning in the snare drum rolls at 0:37 etc. doesn't sound that great. Very nice for a first mix, but I think it needs a little bit more sprucing up before it's ready for prime time. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted February 6, 2010 Share Posted February 6, 2010 A lot to like here. I love the intro which opens on some great war FX before kicking in the guitars and drums. The arrangement itself is pretty cool, picking and choosing various bits of the game music and creating something new. I thought it flowed reasonably well. Like CHz has mentioned, production needs improvement. The drums sound overly compressed, so that's a good place to start. I'd remove that compression, try to get the levels and EQ more balanced and then maybe add some of that compression back. Though this is really pushed, the high-end is not all that filled, which might be another side effect of the compression. You might have too much competing in the lows. I'd like to pass this one, so please take another stab at the production, Dustin! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted February 22, 2010 Author Share Posted February 22, 2010 Excellently powerful arrangement and a great soundtrack i'm glad you introduced me to. There are some serious production and execution issues though, that need to be addressed before this is ready. Most noticeable is the lack of any velocities on the drums. Those snare rolls are painfully mechanical, and need to have the velocities staggered. What i mean by that, is the off-hits need to be a noticeably lower velocity that the dominant ones. Think more along the lines of "XxXxXxXx" rather than "XXXXXXXX". Overall the production is being way too overbearing. The compression is smashing this like One trick you can try that is easy and will undoubtedly help is turn every individual track down about 1.5db. Due to how you are compressing things, it'll still have a good volume, but things will have more room to breathe. From there, you can assess what needs to be done, without all the audio distorting. This will most likely be some surgical EQ cuts in the low end. You'll want to roll off anything lower than 50hz on just about everything, and then probably a really sharp cut around 250hz. Just go with your ear as best you can. Definitely showing promise here, but fix up those issues. no, resubmit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts