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OCR02140 - *YES* Donkey Kong Country 2 'Breathe Deep'


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Remixer names: The Vagrance, Wild

Real Name: Samuel Day, Marcus Wild

E-mail: Samuel.day@gmail.com

Website: Soundcloud.com/fli

OCR ID: 15461

Name of Game Arranged: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest

Name of Individual Song: Stickerbush Symphony

Name of the Remix: Breathe Deep

Comments:

My whole point was to create an atmosphere similar to the original in a typical DnB song structure, as opposed to trying to follow along the melodies; I wanted the whole arrangement to glide. I got one of my friends Marcus to play sax over the track and I took his takes, basted them in reverb and did a bit of stretching and tuning to create the sax part in the song. The breakdown in the end has very little to do with the rest of the track but I enjoy it too much to take it out. So yeah, no TED talk samples, no rapping, just another boring submission.

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I really like the feel and flow of this, and initially, the bells playing the iconic plinks and ploonks worked really, but besides that melodic instance, the connection is very tenuous. There is no other dominant melodic reference to the original source, and it becomes an "inspired by" track, rather than a ReMix. It is pretty well produced, with clean sounds and good balance, but it's far too liberal on the arrangement side of things for me to pass. SOrry guys, I do love the track though. :-(

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Gonna disagree. The source is really characterized by that syncopated line and some sustained chord movements; there are some embellishing chimes that also show up, and all those elements are here.

I really love the contrast between the smooth, relaxing bell sounds and the high tension dnb percussion. There's a wonderful sense of motion here.

I like it!

YES

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  • 4 weeks later...

The production is awesome, the effortless gliding between styles and instruments! Excellent usage of sax, unexpected but a great sound. Regardless of whether this is kosher with OCR standards, the song is just a joy to listen to.

After 1:28, the arrangement is liberal in how the source is handled. The riffs become the basis of what is pretty much an entirely new track, but this is not the first remix to pull a trick like this. By timestamp, this is just over 50% by my count. In addition, it sounds sufficiently Bramble-y to me. With both of those conditions met, I'm happy to pass this.

YES

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I'm with Shariq and Vinnie on this one. The source track is very ambient to begin with; there's not really that much going on in terms of a main melody, so I don't feel like the arrangement is missing that per se. What you've come up with stays true to the original mood - and although that is not a requirement by any means, it does help maintain a connection in this case with a fairly liberal arrangement.

Honestly, I love this mix. It never feels forced, and it's ever evolving. The live sax was a great touch. I just wish you had come back to the source after your totally original section, and turned that into a real ending. The fadeout was a little disappointing because you could have pretty easily concluded the song by slowly peeling away the layers until you're left with just the bells or something. Ah well. Solid work, nevertheless!

YES

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry but there just isn't enough source. It's only obvious what it is because of the intro. If you skip to the dnb section there's very little obvious connection from then on. It would not be identifiable. You could just take some dnb in the same key and paste that little bells riff over the intro and outro and it wouldn't be far from the amount of connection here. It's missing the point of an OCR arrangement entirely. This still kicks ass mind you, just not OCR material to me.

I think you guys should listen again. This isn't dominant and it's only artificially identifiable by planting the bells riff in your brain before essentially doing it's own thing.

Awesome production and style. If you make anything with more of the original please submit it :3.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not super hot on the overall textures. I thought the breakbeats were pretty basic and repetitive. The beats of the intro were repetitive, but at least there were different filter and effects changes to try to morph the sound a bit.

The worse offender was the beatwork at 1:28, which sounded pasted underneath the track and generally bland. The more progressive stutters & breaks (e.g. 2:10-2:13) added a bit of spice to the beats. That kind of crazy stuff should have been used more without going overboard. If there was a way to tweak the mixing so the beats didn't sound so separate in the soundscape from everything else, they wouldn't have seemed so out of place.

The voice also brought in at 1:28 was just kind of...there. I realize it was a stylistic choice to place it off-beat, but it was another element that just seemed awkwardly placed. That said, was an element that helped fill out the texture a bit.

Not sure what the complaints about arrangement & source usage are. The main bell motif was there throughout almost the first 90 seconds, the verses sprinkled the chorus melody there, and the sax used the chorus as well.

The most conservative source usage I can break down is:

:00-1:26, 1:30-1:33, 1:35-1:38, 1:41-1:44, 1:46-1:49, 1:52-1:55, 1:58-2:01, 2:03-2:06, 2:09-2:12, 2:14-2:23, 2:26-2:30, 2:38-2:52, 2:57-3:41

That's 181 seconds or 69.62%. It's not "close to 50%," it's significantly over 50%. It used the source material in a pretty straightforward, overt way basically until 3:41. Even factoring in concerns about placement and prominence, I don't see how this doesn't pass that sniff test.

Pretty competent, even if it wasn't my cup of tea. I thought there was potential here that wasn't fully unlocked, but what was in place gets by. It was more a matter of the beats being bland and the elements not fully locking together that made this a touch sell, not the arrangement concepts.

YES (borderline)

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