OceansAndrew Posted December 29, 2010 Share Posted December 29, 2010 Nutritious Justin Medford NutritiousMultimedia@gmail.com 16520 Return All Robots Training Montage This was created as part of Zircon's remix contest for the upcoming Return All Robots release. It's a Pendulum-inspire take on Training Montage. I've been on a bit of a Pendulum kick lately (I think it's a phase many mixers go through), so this is my attempt at injecting a bit of it into RAR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 I love how the source is a total homage to the Rocky 4 training montage, which is a permanent resident of my ipod shuffle. There is a pretty good personalization of the source, and some nice chord progression enhancements. The arrangement is generally pretty good, but each section feels a bit on autopilot, with not a ton of details to get caught up in. It's not bad by any means, but it could be a lot more. Additional drum fills would be good too, seems like the snare is way prominent but that beyond that, it's a little static. I think some stronger builds and breaks would give it a better dynamic impression as well. So the arrangement is good but not great. Production-wise it's pretty solid, with a good solid balance and some cool synth choices that generally mesh together well. I think the bass is a little indistinct overall, and maybe the snare is a little loud, but otherwise i'm feelin' it. Overall, it's a pretty good mix, but I can't help but feel it could have been better executed and more exciting. I've gone back and forth on it a few times and I think that you are definitely capable of making it more exciting, considering your talent. Shouldn't be much more than adding some additional interest to the track No (please resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 I can't help but echo what Andrew has already said. You've got plenty of arrangement here, but knowing who this is coming from, I was just expecting more. I dunno if it was the time limit or whatever, but I KNOW you can pull more out of this. I'd like to hear some more dynamic contrasts (especially out of the swells that you use so often, such a great opportunity there!), and you could pull some more out of the drums overall. Along with that, anything that you could do to spice this up would help add more life to it. Justin, I need more! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 The strength of the arrangement lies in the original being so good, no offense intended to Justin. I just love "Training Montage," and much of the part-writing was ported over from the original. Right off the bat, the track was muddy. It wasn't enough to NO it right there, but it was indeed messy and should have been cleaned up. As far as execution, the orchestration definitely could have used the added clarity. I definitely wasn't feeling the string articulations for the 2:20-2:43 section. Again, the loudness did cover it a up a bit, but the articulations weren't natural-sounding enough and were behind the beat. I get what the others are saying about this lacking something. Right now the arrangement sounded a bit straightforward, but the mud only partially covered up that there was not much going besides a relatively straightforward (but sufficiently personalized) cover. The track really did come off as surprisingly minimalist. Clean the mixing up a bit, tighten some screws and see what other personalization you can throw into the mix for the main verses to make it more interpretive and this would be golden. Nothing to be discouraged about here, this is a solid base. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 Closing this out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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