Super Mario Bros Underground - "Headbangers Underground"

[WiiCube64]

This is my first post onto this thread, but I have been listening to OCRemix since the early 2000's. I have submitted 4 remixes to this site, mostly with good feedback, but ultimately rejected due to it sounding simple and unfinished, which I understand, I'm not exactly Koji Kondo. I have been working on this piece for a while. Believe it or not, though this was partly made on FL Studios, that's me playing the trumpet part, I got a friend to do the flute section in the beginning, and my cousin did the electric guitar, though they were all electronically edited with wavepad to eliminate blemishes and even out the tone, and the trumpet part is a loop. The drum beats, the wave guitar, and the acoustic are all MIDI's, though I edited them to sound a bit more real, but they're far from perfect. I like this piece, but am looking for some feedback and criticism before I submit this to the judges panel. Be tough, but fair.

Link: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/394386

[WiiCube64]

I have done many videogame remixes and submitted the better ones to Newgrounds. Just click on my username and listen to them at your leisure if you wish, if not, disregard this post.

[TheReverend]

The Bad:

Ouch! That pseudo-guitar sound that is playing the bass line cuts like a knife. That wouldn't be Slayer by chance would it? It's also got a ton of reverb and delay on it. This has to go; get a new sample or make it not so edgy and dull the effects just a tad.

With everything coming in, you get a beat going, but it goes nowhere. It's the same loop over and over again. This desperately needs some original writing or a healthy deviation from the source. It's just a dolled up 16-bit source in new sounds.

After 3:34 of the original source, something new finally happens. But at 4:18, we are back to the same thing.

I feel like the sound quality on all the instruments is subpar, like you used presets and did little to change them or tweak/add different effects to them.

I hear that kick drum, but the rest of the percussion is severely buried.

The end was awkward. The energy you build with the kick and the edgy sounds just stopped. I'd rework that.

The Good:

I'm struggling to put stuff here, as I hate to give critiques without any good or constructive criticism.

The actual beat and groove you get going is the driving force in your song. It's a good place to build. Don't wait three minutes to introduce something new. Let us hear some original writing or creative arranging earlier on, before or at the one minute mark.

Building on the previous statement, make those drums pop out at us. Even though they are a little buried, they keep the song moving strong. The groove is established early, but it gets monotonous. Some nifty drum work here and there would do wonders for you.

Other Thoughts:

If you want this submitted to OCR, it needs a lot of work. More variation from the source, more original writing, better sound quality, and a better ending, specifically.

[Rozovian]

Terrible fake guitar, poor mixing, repetitive arrangement. But I've heard worse.

For something so prominent in the arrangement, the guitar really brings down the overall quality. For something so repetitive, you could just have someone record the part on a real guitar. Or you could go for a less guitar-like sound and get the whole realism problem out of the way.

Too loud bass drum, too loud guitar, everything seems added haphazardly with little regard to volume. Mixing is about giving every element its own place to create a balanced whole. Learn it.

3:36 breakdown is a nice break from the repetition and the ugly guitar, but there the volume problems with the bass drum become more apparent. Also, why is every other beat louder? For a remix, the break would need some connection to source, which is pretty difficult with a repetitive and minimal source like this. Still, not impossible. Experiment with it.

Sound design is all over the place, there's some sounds that are pretty good, and others (LIKE THE GUITAR!!) that... aren't. Train your ears to hear what works and what doesn't.

There's some stuff in here worth expanding on, but I don't think this can be adapted for ocr. So don't worry about that, just use it to to learn the technical stuff. And have fun mixing, it helps.

[WiiCube64]

Thanks for the feedback, I wasn't expecting anything supremely positive. I am new at mixing. The only thing is, that is a real guitar, I don't know what settings my cousin used or what kind of guitar it was, but it is real. It was also recorded via microphone, not electronically. That might explian the crappy quality, also when I spent time in wavepad deleting background noise and adding a slight echo to cover up the skips and noise i couldn't filter out. But, again, thanks for the feedback. I'll work on this extensively and hopefully have something worth putting up in the following months.

[SonicThHedgog]

kick drums are over compressed, snares are to hidden, i can tell the guitar is not fake indeed, its drop tuned for fast chords, but the tone is not terrible but could use some improvments, but the mic he used is REALLY good, but should position the mic better like adding more air bettween his amp/cab, also for most of the time you should NOT or try NOT quantize, nor edit guitar note/chord transitions, or it will make you guitar sound a bit synth. tell him to try and record the chords nicely and cleanly and just loop the recorded chords.

This song is nearly the structure of a house track, but this is not a housetrack and should not be that repetitive on some parts unless your planning to loop this track, or you like it that way ;o

the composition and the creativity is very well done.

Not a bad track at all.

[PROTO·DOME]

The only thing is, that is a real guitar.

I want to believe you, really I do. Your cousin has like MIDI perfect timing with perfect and equal note cutoffs. Coupled with the fact he deliberately made his guitar sound like the fakest Slayer preset and played it all with exactly the same velocity.

:/

[eilios]

I know this has been said before, but this is a really fake sounding guitar. And it's really loud, too. I don't think it's my headphones, but I keep hearing really bad crackles. The synth that shows up a minute in is kinda cool, I guess, but it's hard to hear over the crackling fake guitar.

It drags on, too. I'd put some breaks or something to lessen the whole "really long loop" aspect. 3:34 was a MUCH needed break from that guitar. It's nice sounding, and I like it. The kick drum, however, shows it's true colours when it's not muffled by the guitar. Pretty overprocessed.

[Rozovian]

I want to believe you, really I do. Your cousin has like MIDI perfect timing with perfect and equal note cutoffs. Coupled with the fact he deliberately made his guitar sound like the fakest Slayer preset and played it all with exactly the same velocity.

:/

From what I understand, Cubey took what his cousin played and cut out silenced and fixed timing. Together with it being a pretty short loop repeated ad nauseum, it ends up sounding fake. Which makes sense. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[WiiCube64]

To clarify: The guitar was EXTENSIVELY EDITED IN WAVEPAD. it is a loop and It is the FIRST THING I RECORDED. I wrote the rest around the guitar. It wasn't very hard to get timing. You would be very surprised what is possible with audio editing software if you work with it.

[WiiCube64]

Also, I know what the Slayer Preset is, and I HATE the sound quality of it. I have only used it a few times with the unplugged sound, and it still wasn't very good.

PS: Yes, Rozovian, you are right. It is just a loop heavily edited. Thanks for recognizing that.

[WiiCube64]

And those are not snares or a kit. The drums are a repeating bongo MIDI. It is like I said in the original post, about 70% of this mix is MIDI, and it is just a rough work in progress, nothing more.