*NO* Mass Effect 'Consequence'

[Palpable]

Contact Information

Remixer Name: Synthetic Synesthesia

Real Name: Dave Reece

Email Address: dv.reece@gmail.com

User ID: 31080

Submission Information

Game: Mass Effect

Song: Love Theme

Platform: Xbox 360

Composers: Jack Wall, Sam Hulick

Soundtrack Links: No official link. It seems Bioware have removed the soundtrack from their store.

Remix Title: Consequence

Comments:

This song was written in FL Studio. It was started in FL Studio 7, ignored for about a year, and eventually finished in FL Studio 9. The vocals and some of the ambient samples were captured from the game while playing it, and the main piano theme was reconstructed by ear in the program.

The original song occurs directly after an emotional moment in the game, forcing the player to make a difficult decision. I felt that this moment was one of the high points of what I considered to be a terrific game, and the music helped hammer the consequences of your actions home. With the remix, I attempted to keep the melancholy feel of the original, while moving it into the downtempo genre and also adding a little 'space' theme with some of the background pads and arps. The vocal samples are from a different section of the game, but were part of one of the best exchanges in the game, and helped with the moody feel of the track. Overall, this is my attempt to recreate my experience of playing Mass Effect in a song.

As for me, I've been tinkering with music for a while. I have no formal training, but have learned from years of listening to and playing with music. I'm a big fan of OC Remix, and my regular listening frequently includes songs from this site.

This is my first OC Remix submission.

I hope I haven't strayed from the source too much, and I hope you like it.

Thanks,

Dave

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[DragonAvenger]

I like what you did with the style here. This isn't a huge leap from the original, but there are a lot of subtle touches that add a lot to this overall. I am personally not feeling the voice clips, but I think it would be different for someone who has actually played the game, so I'll give them a little bit of leeway. I am a little worried about the length of the overall mix. There wasn't that much melodically to work with from the source, and I think there are a fair amount of things that you did do to this to keep it interesting, but after a while it starts to wear on me. I think this could have had more emotional power if there had been about a minute taken out of it.

I'm noticing that the drums especially get pretty repetitive with the loops. I would have liked to have seen more variation and time taken to really personalize the drums. Along with that, the piano feels very mechanical. In it's own way it works with the mix, so I'm not going to totally fault it, but it would have been nice to have some velocity changes in the quieter, more emotional sections of the mix. I will say that the transitions for different sections were done very well.

I think the production overall is pretty clear, and everything has good support and sound throughout. The various effects that you use, like the reversed voice clip lead ins add a nice touch.

I think this, while it could stand some improvement, is good enough to pass as is. The other judges might have more issues with different things than I did, good luck with the rest of the vote.

YES

[OceansAndrew]

I think the 2 minutes that the source itself takes up[ is about perfect for the content of the song, so with the remix, I feel that the extra length is a little unjustified, especially based on the general lack of dynamics. There are some coool effects and such used, but overall the arrangement totally drags. Even though it's really close tonally to the original, there is enough new stuff to consider it personalized, but it really needs to be condensed.

Production was ok, but not mindblowing, the beats seemed a little pasted on.

Overall decent, but it needs to be trimmed and refined a bit more.

No, please resubmit

[DarkeSword]

Certainly a long mix, but not bad at all. Lots of good ideas, great arrangement. But in the end I feel that this mix goes on for maybe 2 minutes too long. There are a couple of places where the arrangement vamps and I don't think there's enough evolution in the texture to justify it. Things begin to drag, given the plodding nature of the melody (lots of piano-on-downbeat going on for quite a while).

I think this ought to be tightened up in terms of arrangement, perhaps condensed.

NO, resub

[Jillian Aversa]

The hi-hats and fills are a little too bright for my taste; they make my ears hoiyt! ;_; And I think this mix could use a little more low end overall.

Cool use of the voice samples, though. The arrangement really feels like an actual expansion of the source (which is breathtaking!), because you kept with the original key and vibe. I definitely like it. But I agree that it could be tightened up; it does start to drag after a while. And aside from the brightness of the percussion, it would definitely benefit from more variation, too. I think that would help maintain interest all around.

This is close as is. I think with a little more work, it'll be a solid pass!

NO (please resubmit)

[Palpable]

I love your sound design in this, especially the vocal clip reverb and delay tricks. However, I'm gonna co-sign with many of the criticisms brought up already. The arrangement has a great sound and plays like a alternate take of the original (a perfectly fine way to arrange this), but drags at times. I'd cut repetitions out of the longer sections, vary the drums more, sneak in more background details and fills, and add more dynamics and humanization to the stiff piano. None of this needs to be drastic, just some subtle variations to hold attention. It'd be a shame to get this 90% of the way to the finish line and just stop there. Please give us another version ftw!

NO (resubmit)