Zelda Underworld remix (Don't Blink)

[Overflow]

hey! I'm back, lol!

I've been sitting on this one for a while, waiting to find a good way to host it.

For now, the song is called "Don't Blink" and is a remix of Zelda 1s dungeon. I'm not completely satisfied with the end, and there is a long repeating stretch early on, but that's because originally, this song had pseudo-rap lyrics, but I couldn't manage to record a decent take.

I actually had a funny idea for the end: I noticed that the underworld theme actually sounds a lot like "Rock a bye baby, on the tree top" and thought it would be funny to end with that, sung kinda creepily.

Anyways, this is what it sounds like now, but I'm ready to change it to get it accepted.

~Enjoy!

[Universe-X]

The ending is pretty good, but maybe you could end it with the Triforce fanfare theme? Just a suggestion :-/ If you want to end it with that "Rock a bye, baby" thing that should spring up some smiles Otherwise, great song and I would also suggest laying off those pizzicatos a little...

[Overflow]

Hmm, the 'triforce get' theme did actually come to mind before... Actually, I wanted to end it with the "link dies" sound, but then I found out someone else already did that

The pizzicatos are too overbearing? Are there too many, is it used a lot, or are they too loud?

[Universe-X]

Actually, I realized some sort of technique in this song:

Keep adding instruments, take it all back, repeat.

Kind of like the underworld theme used in SSBB.

And, nevermind about the pizzes... well, maybe toning those down, just a little, and bringing out the melody a little more should be good.

Don't do the Link dies thing if it's already been done. People will think it's just stealing.

DO THE GET TRIFORCE! YES! DO THAT!

[Overflow]

This is good stuff, but I want to get a better understanding of what you mean. Which song from SSBB are you referring to? Is it an actual zelda remix, or an original brawl song? I think I've got the soundtrack for that game...

[Universe-X]

The Underworld song from SSBB I'm refering to is this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crI-5q3XXJc&fmt=18

You can notice how it increases in instruments throughout the song. Once again, cool technique.

[Gario]

Hmm... well, this won't be accepted on OCR, I'm pretty sure of that. Not to say it's bad, but it doesn't quite follow some of it's prerequisites. Namely...

Originally posted by OCR Submission Standards

• Submissions must be different enough from the source material to clearly illustrate the contributions, modifications, and enhancements you have made. Acceptable arrangement often involves more than one of the following techniques:
  

• Modifying the genre, chord progression, instrumentation, rhythms, dynamics, tempo, or overall composition of the source material
  
• Adding original solos, transitions, harmonies, counter-melodies, lyrics, or vocals to the source material
  

There really isn't nearly enough variation to the source in this music. The changes in the instrumentation is nice, but it's not nearly enough to be accepted on OCR. There really needs to be some structural changes in the music in order to be acceptable, which your remix contains none of. The standards bring some options to the table, so try experimenting with those ideas a bit and see where that takes you.

I like the change-up at 2:58 - 3:36, but it isn't enough to get this on here.

Also...

• Synthesized and sampled elements must be reasonably sophisticated.
  

• General MIDI sounds from low-budget soundcards are not sufficient when superior samples are available online for free.
  

While many of the synths are pretty good, some of them are jarringly low-fi instruments (the piz. string is the prime example, in the song - it sounds like it came from DKC2). Also, some of the instruments could use a little bit more humanization (such as the organ in the beginning), so work on that.

Watch out with the drum work, as it's very repetitive as it stands. In fact, you could use a whole new set, since the drums you use now are very weak and lack the hat work completely.

Overall, it's a fun listen, and I wouldn't mind listening to it more than once, but it's just not what OCR is looking for. Good luck with any future endeavors.

[clockworkengine]

I hope the poster beneath me is not representing the general viewpoint of this site. I listened to the entire track and I found plenty of variations in there. I think the arrangement you're using is progressive and interesting. As far as using low quality samples, I think the quality of the arrangement is sufficient to dismiss that single shortcoming. I'm new on this forum so I don't have the general feel for the spirit of the place yet, but I hope that some of these dismissive posters I have seen thus far aren't the norm here.

Some of these submission standards that have been reported on below are quite subjective, and from my interpretation they aren't meant to be combined like a dog-pile on an unsuspecting receiver. I believe they are meant to steer submissions toward a certain level of quality, and I believe some balance is needed during the weighing of them. Furthermore, these interpretations of your 'pizzicatos' are a bit personalized, aren't they? I mean, did they ask you if it was your intention for them to sound the way they do? Are they saying that fidelity is not an artistic variable in electronic music? I hope not, otherwise their opinions might be considered lacking in texture and understanding of the limitless nature of music and the imagination. And isn't it a little oxymoronic to suggest that electronic music must be humanized when it is based on a medium that was incapable of humanization? Sure, you could choose to humanize it for effect, but you chose not to, so I don't think you should "work on that" unless you see fit.

[Inv1ctus]

I hope the poster beneath me is not representing the general viewpoint of this site. I listened to the entire track and I found plenty of variations in there. I think the arrangement you're using is progressive and interesting. As far as using low quality samples, I think the quality of the arrangement is sufficient to dismiss that single shortcoming. I'm new on this forum so I don't have the general feel for the spirit of the place yet, but I hope that some of these dismissive posters I have seen thus far aren't the norm here.

Some of these submission standards that have been reported on below are quite subjective, and from my interpretation they aren't meant to be combined like a dog-pile on an unsuspecting receiver. I believe they are meant to steer submissions toward a certain level of quality, and I believe some balance is needed during the weighing of them. Furthermore, these interpretations of your 'pizzicatos' are a bit personalized, aren't they? I mean, did they ask you if it was your intention for them to sound the way they do? Are they saying that fidelity is not an artistic variable in electronic music? I hope not, otherwise their opinions might be considered lacking in texture and understanding of the limitless nature of music and the imagination. And isn't it a little oxymoronic to suggest that electronic music must be humanized when it is based on a medium that was incapable of humanization? Sure, you could choose to humanize it for effect, but you chose not to, so I don't think you should "work on that" unless you see fit.

The standards are extremely subjective, and so is the criticism of thread-goers sometimes, but its the price you pay around here if you want it submitted. I guess its the dirty taboo that isnt too often discussed. The bottom line is they are looking for high quality mixes, and at its most basic necessity, the concept of judgment is going to be subjective.

I agree with you though. When people start telling me what should go where and how i should arrange the music, its a bit silly, unless you are looking for that kind of feedback. The conundrum of music is that anything can be considered music (and in some cultures, literally anything that makes noise is used for music), so notions of subjectivity, however pragmatic, only go as far as the individual experience. Basically what im saying is, here they are looking for the Renoirs and Jan VanEycks of the music world, not so much the Jackson Pollocks.

But hey, its their Louvre! They get to decide which pictures to hang on the wall.

[Universe-X]

As far as I know, this song is pretty original and variated from the original 8BIT sounds *wink*wink*. If you can make a little medley out of it, it could probably be better. By the way, what remix program do you use?

[Gario]

I hope no one is under the impression that I believe this mix is 'bad', by any stretch of the imagination. I think I even said it was a nice mix with some fun elements thrown in there. I only said that it wasn't going to make it on OCR, and I gave the exact reasons why. I hope quoting the site standards isn't intimidating, as that was not my intention.

Clockworkengine, the general attitude of this site and it's forums are not one of disdain and snobbery. It's one of encouragement and critical analysis, for the most part (sure, there are some posters that have egos bigger than their postcounts, but I'm trying to exclude that from the 'general attitude' bit). You see, if I said this song was great, grand and ready to be posted on OCR, I wouldn't be of much help to the OP if that wasn't in fact true, would I?

He's expressly asked in his post if it was ready for OCR posting, so I gave him the honest answer followed by the reasoning behind it. If he simply posted this here and said 'Hey guys, this is a little something I'm doing on my own time' my response would be very different, but this is not the case, here.

Originally posted by clockworkengine

Some of these submission standards that have been reported on below are quite subjective, and from my interpretation they aren't meant to be combined like a dog-pile on an unsuspecting receiver.

This actually has been addressed by the site - of course most of the standards are subjective. That's why there are 8-10 judges with a variety of styles at any one time judging the music. That rids the process of subjective bias, for the most part (you can never get rid of all bias, but one can get rid of most of it this way).

I would suggest looking through here and on the front page to get a better idea of what OCR is looking for. I understand you're new, so you can see for yourself how the J's interpret the standards. The standards are there for good reason - please don't be harsh interpreting their decisions, since it's the decisions are made so this site can have as much of it's music on a standard of quality that's unmatched by any site out there, atm. It's tough, but it works well.

I've seen enough carnage on this site (suffering a few rejections myself) to have a general understanding of what's accepted on here and what isn't, so my advice probably holds.

Furthermore, these interpretations of your 'pizzicatos' are a bit personalized, aren't they? I mean, did they ask you if it was your intention for them to sound the way they do?

By the very fact that the poster wanted to know what needed to be done in order to get on this site he has implicitly given everyone else the right to tell him what is needed for that very purpose. Think of it this way, if the poster wanted a very specific effect that his lo-fi instruments provided, and the general public (and, implicitly, the J's) didn't understand what the effect was or why he used the lo-fi instruments, what good does that effect do for anyone? He's bravely exposing his music to the people here in hopes that they will give him an objective answer, in turn learning something about music and making himself a better composer, overall. By telling him anything other than what one believes to be the truth ultimately hurts that purpose.

Are they saying that fidelity is not an artistic variable in electronic music? I hope not, otherwise their opinions might be considered lacking in texture and understanding of the limitless nature of music and the imagination.

Really, you're being rather closed-minded here. Who's to say that fidelity is not artistic (or an artistic variable)? Not you, I or OCR. However, at the same time OCR is looking for a specific format and quality level, and it's their right to do so. Is this my site, your site, or any member of OCR's site? No, no and yes - it's djpretzel's site. He decided that he's looking for music with a certain quality, thus that's what will be posted here.

If you want a site dedicated to remixes with a purposeful low-quality sound, look up Olremix.org, or if you want an alternative site with good mixes (and a different set of standards), look up remix.thasauce.net. OCR isn't the end-all of music, you know, but the poster wanted a mix on this site, so he'll need to comply with whatever standard is in place, atm.

And isn't it a little oxymoronic to suggest that electronic music must be humanized when it is based on a medium that was incapable of humanization? Sure, you could choose to humanize it for effect, but you chose not to, so I don't think you should "work on that" unless you see fit.

No, since I am not referring to the electronic portions of the music. He is using many 'realistic' instruments in his song, which implies that he's attempting to add some 'real' music, for color. I'm making a couple of suggestions that would help him achieve his most likely goal - if this isn't what he wants then he can let me know for himself (it isn't very hard to respond to something like my post, you know), and I will instead point him in a direction that will help him with what he wants. Until then, though, the non-humanization sounds like a mistake, and will be treated as such, by most listeners that hear it.

Long post, but I'm a bit disgruntled by new posters that don't quite understand what the direction of my posts are or the purpose of this site is. I'm not trying to sound angry or antagonistic - I'm trying to clarify a couple of points for anyone here. Please don't disregard this as an angry rant, as it's not.

I'll admit a bit of my PPR mentality is eeking out in this post, though...

[Overflow]

Actually, I made this a fair while ago in Garageband. I know have a much better computer with Logic, so I guess I could import it into that and update the sounds, such as the pizzicatos.

As it stands, I did not expect this to be accepted in its present form. As I said, I had originally intended for there to be vocals, and as such wanted those to be the focus. Since then, I think I'll forgo the vocals, and focus on the tune itself.

I actually had the idea of also medlying (Word?) this with the forest song from Link's Awakening, after hearing http://iterations.org/files/music/remixes/Zelda_Link%27s_Awakening_Forest_of_Hysteria_OC_ReMix.mp3

As you probably noticed, the main tune is varied from the source. You mentioned, however, that even more variation would help. Do you mean that every time the main tune plays, it should be a different, live-style variation?

I suppose having updated sounds would help help towards the human element, as most of the sounds I used were pretty lo-fi. But I'm not sure how to make the organ at the intro sound more human, outside of improving the sound used. Any suggestions?

P.S. Thanks a ton for the input!

[Gario]

Vocals would help a lot, and live variation would be a real boon to the piece. I have noticed the variation in it already, but more would help.

Making it a medley is a good idea (considering the short source), but be careful to make the music sound like a cohesive whole - if it sounds like two songs placed next to each other it's generally frowned upon. Do it, but with caution

As for the organ, think of how an organ functions. They tend to have a similar dynamic with all of their notes, but they use swells to make the sound get louder and quieter. If it's all one dynamic it tends to make it sound like a machine wrote the music, so add some volume variation (and do it in a way that increases the volume mid-note and gradually, for realism's sake). That'll help it along, just don't go overboard... it's a tricky business .

As for better samples... Does anyone know what Garageband (or Macs in general) accepts? I'm under the impression that VST and VSTi are both Windows plugins, so they may not work as well for him. I'm sure there are better sample sets and such out there, though.

Good luck!

[Shade]

For variation, the issue is less how many times things get varied and more how substantial the changes are. Try fiddling with changing up the chord progression, the form of the melody (the lead is pretty static throughout the song), dynamics, and instrumentation - as it stands, a lot of the piece feels pretty samey. The section you introduce around 3:00 is a good bit of variety, more vibe changes like that would help.

Dynamic variation is key for "humanizing" (sentient-robotizing?) the music. I'd also suggest adding some fills and changes in the drum part to accentuate what the melody's doing.

[clockworkengine]

My apologies for disgruntling you, sir. My post was actually directed at the gentleman who submitted the song, as an alternative to yours and a few other opinions on there. It was not meant to provoke a response from you. In response to your suggestions, no, I'm not intimidated by your quoting the submission standards. Based on Judges' reviews on this forum, I suspect that your interpretation is less than accurate. No, I'm not closed-minded for suggesting that he can keep his string plucks right where he wanted them. Yes, I've already read several judges decisions, and yes I've read the submission standards. So, once again, sorry I disgruntled you!

[Overflow]

Alright, I'm just finishing up a basic redux now, should be up later tonight. Nothing major, just replacing a few sounds and retooling the drums, although I did add the fabled lyrics. Again, I'm not convinced that the lyrics are the best, but this is what I originally envisioned.

I still plan on adding the 'triforce get' theme at the end, but haven't done that yet.

[Overflow]

There's version 2. Not much, but an idea of what sounds Logic has.

[Spakku]

I think I picked out an instance of the word "labyrinth". And maybe "underground" at one point.

Which is to say that the vocals are quite hard to hear.

EDIT:

Slightly clearer in the second half.

[Gario]

The vocals add a lot to the music - it's designed for vocals, as I can now see. You need to make them clearer, though - Spakku basically nails it, there. Is the vocal track attached to the mixerboard in a way that it mutes with the electronic effects in the background? That's what it sounds like, to me, but I could be wrong.

[Overflow]

I'm not exactly sure about the mixer... These are just rough lyrics I did. I'm not very good at this style of "singing." I like the lyrics I wrote, though, but I think they could be better:

Working through this labyrinth,

Locked doors surround me,

Desperately trying to

avoid these enemies,

I've lost my magic shield and

My final heart beats heavily.

Death is quickly closing in,

Ganon's hateful, burning plea.

Thieving Like-Likes follow me,

Keese will always flutter near,

Gibdos chase but cannot see,

Evil Wizrobes Disappear,

I feel darkness closing in,

these dungeons are filled with many sins.

Working through this labyrinth,

Locked doors surround me,

Desperately trying to

avoid these enemies,

I've lost my magic shield and

My final heart beats heavily.

Death is quickly closing in,

Ganon's hateful, burning plea.

Traps spring out from the shadows,

Darknuts patrol deadly halls,

preparing the bloody gallows.

No one will answer my calls.

The map and compass are no gain,

This mirror maze always looks the same.

Working through this labyrinth,

Locked doors surround me,

Desperately trying to

avoid these enemies,

I've lost my magic shield and

My final heart beats heavily.

Death is quickly closing in,

Ganon's hateful, burning plea.

Secret passages abound,

leading me to what I need.

Treasures lie deep underground,

how can I ignore my greed?

This heavy breathing's not your own,

Something evil lurks high on the throne.

Working through this labyrinth,

Locked doors surround me,

Desperately trying to

avoid these enemies,

I've lost my magic shield and

My final heart beats heavily.

Death is quickly closing in,

Ganon's hateful, burning plea.

Princess Zelda, wait for me!

Don't be worried, don't be scared!

With the triforce shards I'll see

the entrance to ganon's lair!

The master sword is what I need

To defeat this evil plague!

Like the hero of time,

I will rescue Hyrule!

[Overflow]

Just finishing up a 3rd version, should be ready tonight. I've added new parts, am working on removing others and adding a new ending. I may add or remove some lyrics, but I haven't recorded any new ones yet, so the old ones will have to do as a placeholder for now.

[Overflow]

Version 3 is ready. Made some significant additions to the middle of the song(Don't want to spoil it!), and touched up a few other areas. There are still some volume issues, (the pizzicatos are a little loud in one segment) that I noticed AFTER uploading it Also, the ending isn't finished. What I have there now is just a basic idea of what the end could be.

Again, the lyrics are not perfected. Think of the current lyrics as placeholders.

[Spakku]

Heh, nice work with the update to the middle, those transitions were quite slick. Horns sound like crap, though.

Ending didn't really work, but you already know that.

Lyrics are noticeably clearer, though I still can't get a lot of them. I did pick up that it's supposed to be Link, though, and it's an oddly grown-up-sounding voice for that particular Link.

[clockworkengine]

Everyone always says the original link was a kid, but just because his sprite is small and cute doesn't mean he was a child. The Adventure of Link takes place just after the first game and Link is a young adult in that game.

[Gario]

Yeah, Spakku pretty much nailed it on the head, there. Also, while the drums are far better than they were, the patterns do still a bit repetitive. It's not that you don't change them up (you do, quite a bit), it's that you have too much reliance on bass drums and snare, for the most part... It would benefit from a great deal from things like hat work and such.

Also, the link in Z1 was, indeed, young according to lore. If you read the instructions for Z2, it explains that the events of Z1 all happened considerably before his 16th birthday, so he couldn't be older than 14 or 15. Maybe not a kid, but certainly young.