Liontamer Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Contact Information Your ReMixer name - hRook Your real name - Hunter Bridges Your email address - hbridges@gmail.com Your website - http://hrook.net/ Your userid - 26952 Submission Information Name of game(s) arranged - Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest Name of individual song(s) arranged - "Hot Head Bop," "Mining Melancholy" Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. (if it has not yet been added to the site) - Composer: David Wise System: SNES Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site) - http://rapidshare.com/files/92401558/Donkey_Kong_Country_2_OST.rar Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. I was inspired to make this piece one day when a friend of mine was in town. We spent a day playing through Donkey Kong Country 2 and I remembered how excellent David Wise's soundtrack was. I have also wanted to submit a piece to OCRemix for quite some time now, but never got around to putting something together for submission. The situation seemed like a perfect marriage. I'm a Commercial Music student at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. My primary instrument is drum set. I am constantly around many different players and the easiest common-ground between everyone is jazz music. Personally I am not that great of a jazz player, but what I like most about the genre is the colorful harmony and ability for each individual player to be expressive. However, it is truly difficult to capture the humanity and expressiveness of that in MIDI data, so I had to make some stylistic alterations. One of my largest drumming inspirations is Thomas Pridgen who, up until recently, performed with The Mars Volta. He has a distinctive flavor to his playing; a very jazzy approach to progressive/experimental rock that echoes his past experience as a gospel player. The drum writing is very inspired by Mr. Pridgen, and I decided to significantly incorporate organ into the piece to compliment that. Since prominent organ is common in gospel, jazz and The Mars Volta's material, I figured it was only fitting. Another aspect of this piece embraces the idiosyncrasies of desktop musicianship and electronic music, using expressive and responsive synthesizer patches to connect the piece with its SNES roots. With some of the synth voices, I tried to come within reasonable distance of emulating original sounds in the pieces. I also incorporated some guitar playing to compliment the very fusion-y sound that resulted from mixing the gospel drums and organ with the electronic-leaning synthesizers. As far as arrangement goes, I simply couldn't decide between pieces since the original songs are so groovy and catchy. I decided that since the two were pretty similar in feel, I would "sandwich" them together (Start with part of A, play all of B, finish A). I put a lot of work into this, it being my first submission to OCRemix. I hope you enjoy it! ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KR3hE0_6Nk - "Hot-Head Bop" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akIgv3_U0Sk - "Mining Melancholy" The production didn't sound quite right to start. The panning was too wide. The opening Rhodes already sounded pretty distant, followed by the guitar/epiano countermelody at :21, and the lead at :41. Everything that should have been in the foreground was way too quiet and soft. The melodic intepretation was kind of ho-hum to start. Some original guitar wank at :59 that should have smoother, but at least it was audible. Decent delay on the piano at 1:19 to cover up the fact that it was mechanically sequenced. Awkward transition into the Kannon's Klaim theme at 1:48. Texturally, things felt pretty scattershot with the drums, which didn't enhance the theme more than distract from it. Not getting any synnergy with how these parts came together. 2:43-3:02 was organ wank before going back to Kannon's Klaim. 3:21, interesting buzzy sounds there. 3:40 had a decent groove, before transition back to Hot-Head Bop at 3:50, which just had a totally different, disconnected feel from the previous section. There's just so little flow in those 20 seconds of transition. I'm not against combining themes at all, but the way it was done here wasn't effective. Better to break the two themes out into unique tracks given how uncomplimentary they were to one another here. Looking forward to the other opinions on this. This was a good base, Hunter, so once you refine the execution of things and get the textures clicking better, you're gonna be putting out some solid stuff. I hope we hear more from you! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted July 6, 2010 Share Posted July 6, 2010 There isn't much I can add to Larry's vote. There's a good base here, and they way things are set up could work very well, but right now too many things are competing against each other instead of working together. I'm most concerned with the balance and sequencing. Make sure you have the parts you want to come out are forefront and the other parts are supporting it. Also please take a look at the sequencing and try to get it closer to how you (or someone) would play the part. This will add a lot to the groove of things. Keep working at it. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted July 12, 2010 Share Posted July 12, 2010 Some really good advice from Larry here, the mixing seemed pretty rough and instead of everything gelling into one polished sound, it was like a bunch of different elements were haphazardly stacked on top of each other. There is a good framework here, and I can tell you put in a good amount of time on this. Don't get discouraged, but this still needs a lot more polish before it can see the front page. No Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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