OceansAndrew Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 Remixer Name: Sonicade Real Name: Kentaro Fischer Email: KentaroFischer@gmail.com Website: http://www.Sonicade.com/ Userid: 5360 Name of Game Arranged: Mortal Kombat Name of Song Arranged: Menu Original Composer: Dan Forden Comments: As short as it is, the menu music from Mortal Kombat 1 has always been one of my favorite pieces of music from the MK games. Maybe it's because of memories playing Mortal Kombat in the arcades back when they still existed. This track is one of my first attempts at Drum & Bass so maybe that shows. I wanted to give this track an ominous feel to fit the MK theme and add to that the frenzied pace of DnB. The original tune isn't very long so it was a challenge for me to try and stretch it out while keeping things interesting. I tried adding a transposition at one point but it didn't sound right at all. The sound effects / game vocals were added toward the end. They were kind of added for comedic effect, especially Raiden's battle cries (@:31, :35) but also to add to the MK atmosphere. At another point I added the names of each character but I decided it sounded too similar to the Mortal Kombat Theme from the first movie. The song was tracked using Renoise, a modern tracking software suite. reFX Vanguard and Spectrasonics Omnisphere were VST used for the leads. reFX Nexus and more reFX Vanguard for the bass and arpeggios. Drums consisted of loops from Loopmasters.com plus Native Instruments Battery. In my never ending quest to improve my mixing, I used a lot of Sonnox Oxford Dynamics Native for compression and gating as well as Waves LinEq for equalizing. As promised, here is another submission before 6 years pass since my previous submission. Best Regards, Kentaro Fischer / Sonicade Original Track Link: -------------------------------------- Production seems pretty solid, and there is some decent expansion of the theme, with some extended sections and a few adjustments to the counter melodies. The speed increase was a good call as well. I thought the sound clips were sometimes cool, sometimes way too cheesy, and though the Synth that played the main melody was exceptionally vanilla, there were strong points and cool layered parts that propped up the arrangement pretty well. The beat remained somewhat static throughout, but was driving and had enough going on that kept it from being stale. I think if the lead synth was more interesting and the vocal clips were toned down slightly i'd feel more confident about this one, but even as-is, I feel this just clears the bar. yes (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted May 19, 2010 Share Posted May 19, 2010 Production was very cool, I really liked the frenetic beat and the rapid-fire synths going on. I wasn't that crazy about the direction this took though, it suffered from a lack of ideas. There's large chunks of the song where it just holds - after the beat kicks in, this stays in roughly the same place until the breakdown, and then after that it goes right back to where it was. Even a longer intro would have helped a lot in terms of spicing this up. Like OA, I didn't like the lead synth very much, it was too rounded and plain to fit into this atmospheric mix. It's close to a pass, and I'm happy to see an MK mix given that the site doesn't have one yet, but I don't think this one is ready yet. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted May 27, 2010 Share Posted May 27, 2010 I'm going to have to echo the guys here. Right now the production is good, and the tempo increase was a good call for what you were going for here. I'm not really convinced with the sound clips overall: I think they were over-used, but at some points I was OK with them. The beats get the job going and keep things moving throughout. The lead synth isn't really holding the power that it should to keep up with the mix. OA's 'Vanilla' description is right on compared to the rest of what's going on. Along with that, the energy level could use some more variation to really help the big parts drive and let the smaller parts provide a good contrast. I think this one needs a little more refinement, but it's close. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted June 2, 2010 Share Posted June 2, 2010 Certainly an enjoyable, danceable break tune. I actually really dig it. I think the biggest problem with regard to passing this is that there's really not a lot of elaboration on the original. It's got the melody once in a while, but the backing track is really only vaguely related to the original, and since it never really goes anywhere, there isn't any particular interpretation of the source beyond the vamp. On the technical end, I think the leads are a bit loud sometimes. NO good stuff though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 It's a fun track, but I think that if you're aiming for drum 'n bass, you need to vary your percussion more. The beat's pretty static throughout the piece, and this could really use something like a big-ass drum breakdown, maybe with some filter effects or something similar. It's a fairly repetitive, straightforward track, and while there's nothing wrong with that. Lead sound needs some more meat to it too, but it's not too bad. Nice energy though, just gotta do some more to not let it go. NO, resub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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