DragonAvenger Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 Greetings once again! DarkSim here with a ReMix of a relatively unknown indie game called Machinarium ( http://machinarium.net for the demo/info) in my continuing quest to seek out (and remix) obscure and brilliant sources. Sources: 1. "Pipe Wrench Dubstep" - 2. "Clockwise Operetta" - Composer: Tomas Dvorak A friend recommended me this game recently, and whilst I thought it was a little pricey for a point-and-click adventure, it did come with a complete soundtrack as part of the purchase. Really good of them to do that, and it's totally worth it as the music is superb. The game's set in a pretty bleak, surreal world inhabited by robots, but has a tremendous amount of charm, and it's set to a beautiful sonic backing that I just had to remix somehow. The 2 source tunes I chose to remix I felt complemented each other well, as Pipe Wrench Dubstep is a great upbeat source for a chorus, and Clockwise Operetta is a fantastic mood setter, with a solo or 2 in there to play off in a breakdown. I'd been listening to PrototypeRaptor's "Penultimate" album for a month before making this and so I decided to try and emulate his style for this track - a tall order indeed, but with my own spin on it I feel I succeeded. I took a slightly different approach to arrangement here in that I only listened to the sources a few times before trying to regurgitate the melodies from memory, thus capturing the feel of the song rather than the exact notes. Hopefully it paid off, I think I managed to get a similar sound and stay true to the atmosphere of the game whilst channeling the 2 sources into an electro-house ReMix. A note on the production - this was made entirely in Ableton Live Suite 8 with no external plugins or VSTs. I really like Ableton as a workstation and highly recommend it! I abused the 'Corpus' module a lot in this track to get some of the metallic sounds, and 'Beat Repeat' was used for some subtle drum effects in the absence of dBlue Glitch. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted April 18, 2011 Author Share Posted April 18, 2011 It's great to see some mixers reaching out to our less-than-known games to find and show appreciation to. Both sources here are pretty cool to listen to, and I definitely agree they make good companions for one another. The mix itself is somewhat understated, which matches the sources, to be honest. That being said, it's still a fun listen, and it's not hard to pick out the source throughout. The soundscape is pretty cool, although I'd like the background instruments to come down just a tad to let the melody instruments shine through a little more. Percussion is interesting throughout, and keeps things moving. Maybe not something you'd listen to super-intently, but lots of little details in here, and it's a fun mix. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 Nice textures and a pretty solid beat, this is a pretty cool take on the source. I like the push-pull feeling going on, and though the compression is a bit on the heavy side, there are enough breakdowns that I don't feel completely battered by the music. The sources were melded together pretty smoothly, and overall I was feeling this. I think the balance could be altered slightly to have a bit more melodic interest, but the real strong point of this is the effective builds and breaks. I think this clears the bar. Yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
halc Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 hehe, the Penultimate influence here is obvious. I like that little Ars Nova reference, clever. balance is just a little off here, I felt that your low end hogged the soundscape just a bit at times, but the mix was nice and punchy. I would have liked the bass to have a little less 'baaoow' and more 'thwack', but that's just me. awesome source tunes. your arrangement felt a little reserved in the way it used them, but they were nicely blended and adapted to the style. sweet change-up to 6/8 in the last two measures, liked the bitcrushing there too. seems pretty solid to me, your production is definitely improving with each of your subs. nice work. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 Very cool, creative sources - they really make me want to check out the game. Your remix is creative too, a dark dancey track with swooping FX and a breakdown that skitters like skeleton fingers. I thought the source was kind of loose at times - either that, or I wasn't fully getting how it was used. There was enough for me to recognize from both sources and I feel ok with that. Have a YES. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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