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Battletoads and Double Dragon - The Ultimate Team (Stage 1) (Rejected Once, looking for feedback)


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Well, this got rejected, so I'm back to the drawing board with this one. I probably won't be submitting this one again any time soon but I will someday so I would like to get some feedback to try and figure out how I can improve this mix. In the rejection letter they said that the sample qualities were too weak. I've never been good at knowing what good or bad samples sound like so maybe some of you can help point out to me which samples are good and bad.

Any advice is appreciated! :)

Link to my mix - http://ocrwip.fireslash.net/?fid=1257

Source -

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I was about ready to start complaining about it being too conservative and then the Power Rangers fluttery synth noise kicked in at 1:30 and segued into the second, much more original, half.

The whole thing sounds very synthetic - part of me assumes it must be intentional when the guitar and piano samples both sound like a cheap keyboard - but the judges ain't gonna touch something like this without something more real sounding taking center stage.

Might I suggest you use some lyrics? I'm feeling the guy rapping/girl singing kinda thing. The source already had that kind of feel but you brought it out even harder.

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Yea my instrumentation with the guitar and piano isn't the greatest, but I'm kinda going for that cheesy synthetic vibe, cuz it's battletoads B) I just don't want the sounds to sound bad though.

So I will swap out that piano for something better though, and I'll try to tweak that guitar part in the chorus.

I debated adding lyrics myself, trouble is I have very little vocal mixing chops and I also couldn't rap my way out of a christmas present :P

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If there's one thing I've learned about you recently CJ, it's that you have pretty good taste in classic games. :-)

The synth choices as a whole are pretty basic. You need a much stronger bass synth (or dare I say, bass guitar?)

The thing I'm assuming people were referring to as the guitars... the midi things? There's a LOT of people you could probably get to play guitar for you. Try the recruitment forum! That would help fill out the soundscape a good bit.

The sequencing is very mechanical, and the source interpretation seems to be pretty conservative.. You should try some things to make it your own. Of course having live guitars could help with that. The synths would probably still be noticeable even if you had live guitars, but then you'd be able to say, "Oh that's intentional, this is inspired by 80s rock." You might even get away with it. *shrug*

The synths are pretty dry. I'm not saying to smother them with reverb and delay, but tasteful usage of reverb and delay can help a lot. The main thing though is trying to get the soundscape filled out for the most-part, and making the sequencing less mechanical. Fiddle with those velocities!

tl;dr Consider choosing more modern synths, apply effects where needed, get some live guitars, add velocities and other humanizing aspects to the sequencing.. :-)

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So I decided to take Spakku's advice and put some vocals in there. I have some "rough draft vocals" in the beginning to give an idea of what I sound like and the vibe I'm going for with this remix. I may need some advice on compression/eq cuz I'm not terrific mixing vocals. Any and/or all advice on that would be good. If the vocals sound ok in the beginning then I'll add some lyrics to the later parts. I also editing a few other things, including the bass in the intro.

Updated Link - http://ocrwip.fireslash.net/?fid=1201

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I do think the intro was cool. Doesn't necessarily help the track, but it doesn't hurt either.

One quibble I have with the song has to be the drums. They don't sound entirely realistic, especially the cymbals.

But I definitely enjoy the rest of the song. Keep it up!

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  • 1 month later...

Well this got rejected, so I'm back to the drawing board with this one. I probably won't be submitting this one again any time soon but I will someday so I would like to get some feedback to try and figure out how I can improve this mix. In the rejection letter they said that the sample qualities were too weak. I've never been good at knowing what good or bad samples sound like so maybe some of you can help point out to me which samples are good and bad.

Any advice is appreciated! :smile:

Link to my mix - http://ocrwip.fireslash.net/?fid=1257

Source -

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Boo-hoo man :puppyeyes:

I'll try to give some coins... Dunno if the judges said something about that, but the way you worked on the vocals here is also pretty bland. I really don't think they add much to your song; you've only got something during the intro (that sounds cool btw) and then a lil' bit in the middle, which makes things too sparse. I think it's odd for a live vocalist to only start the track with some melody and then go away for the orchestra to play :P

Drumwork tastes vanilla. Put some strawberry n' chocolate in, will ya? There's parts where I can't feel the oomph of your kick, the tah of your snare, and even the tish of your cymbals (I can easily recognize FL Studio's crash sample there, coz it's very exposed in parts like 1:42-46). In fact, the whole song lacks energy, and even though it would be cool for a game of some kind (YAY BATTLETOADS), I guess the simplified exploration of your samples makes this arrangement not up to OCR's standards.

Agreed with guitar complaints, get someone to play it for you or try better samples. I don't think cheesy vibe works here. Also agreed that there's mechanical, rigid sequencing.

2:19-3:10. Somewhat a lack of dynamics, and it gets boring after a time. Gives me the sensation that there was some kinda laziness in this bit, and the sequencing is like 'copy&paste' patterns.

I find your Garfield mix to be SO good! Not sure how judges will react to the way you changed styles in there, but the quality of production and arrangement of that track is a lot more likely to fit OCR. My suggestion is to follow what you've done there based on these aspects (if that tells you anything :P).

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Thanks for the feedback Guifrog and DarkSim! I'll definitely bug you some more here and in the IRC when I rework this mix. ;)

However, I'm most likely not gonna resubmit it for another couple months or so since I have a couple other mixes I'm working on right now. But the advice I got should be enough to make this track a good one when I do work on it and give it a good sound overhaul. :-D I just gotta practice my humanizations, sample tweaking and general mixing stuff.

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