*NO* Garfield: Caught in the Act 'Glitch Delay'

[OceansAndrew]

Contact Information

CJthemusicdude

CJthemusicdude.com

Submission Information

Name of game(s) arranged: Garfield: Caught in the Act for Genesis (Or PC)

Name of individual song(s) arranged: Count Slobula's Castle

Name of remix: Glitch Delay

Link to the original soundtrack:

(Genesis Version)

(PC Version, the exact same song but with different instrumentation and a few small arrangement differences.)

Your own comments about the mix: Not much for me to say. I loved this game as a kid and I love the music in the game, especially this tune, which is both intense and haunting. So I thought I would give it some love for OCremix.

[OceansAndrew]

A pretty good expansion of the theme overall, though some of the synth choices are straight up weird. I guess it makes sense for a Garfield mix.

The attention paid to the details is pretty great, and even though the mixing could have been a little more balanced, and the production cleaner, the overal feel of this is solid and pretty polished.

I dig it.

Yes

[DragonAvenger]

Going to agree with Andrew on most of this. You definitely put some hard work into the small things to make this mix pretty solid. I felt like some areas worked better than others at keeping my interest, and overall I felt like the drums could have been more interesting. Things to think about for your next mix, for sure. Also, can't say I'm really feeling the ending, but that might be personal choice.

In the end, though, the mix is a quirky, spooky, and fun take on a source not many people would look at.

YES

[Nutritious]

Source seems pretty ominous for a Garfield game, but I guess it depends on the context .

Nice job setting the stage for your mix in the intro here. The initial chord totally reminded me of a mix from the FF4 project (which exactly slips my mind at the moment).

So the choir & voices felt tacked on to the rest of the mix with their sudden entrances and exits. Gotta see if you can get them to gel better - maybe with a little more wetness or more gradual attacks/decays. Synth that enters around :37 had some loud resonant frequencies that were harsh on the ears; fortunately, it didn't stick around long so not a big deal there. Transitional sections starting at 1:27 came off as awkward to me; energy was really lost here and it switches to a few different passages before establishing itself again at 1:48.

Also, the synth lead that comes in at 1:06 has a similar tone to the synth playing a backing part, so you may want to consider changing one of them for mix clarity sake. Same issue around 2:30 where multiple similar toned synths are clashing with each other. Totally feel what OA is saying in general that the synth choices do come off a bit odd, but it does give the mix a unique character, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing.

One of my main gripes is with the beat. It really felt... awkward & clunky to me I guess. Maybe it's the pattern - the way it was written with eight note kicks and repetative rhythms really felt amateurish to me I'm sorry to say.

Watch the levels at 3:30, it sounded like things start distorting as it got louder. Also agree with DA at the weak ending. At the very least the organ seems to fade out very quick. To help it out, I'd drop the tempo down there and bring back the choirs to support.

Yeah, so really long vote pointing out a lot of minor issues. Overall, I don't think any of these production gripes are a dealbreaker by themselves, however, I feel like the sum total of them is bringing it below the bar for me. I hope this isn't discouraging, though. I wouldn't put so much effort into this judgement if I didn't think your work deserved it. Anyway, I could definitely be in the minority here, so good luck with the rest of the vote.

No, resubmit please

[Palpable]

While I liked some of the ideas in this, I thought there were some big weaknesses to it. The repeated kicks were amateurish as Justin said. I've heard that kind of thing work, but it didn't work for me in this song. The leads are very raw and that also didn't work in your favor. They felt too plain, especially combined with some generic drums that were used. The balance was good at some points and askew or cramped at others (0:55 e.g.). The arpeggio writing at 0:38 was dissonant and I got the sense that it wasn't intentional.

Basically this is a shorter version of Justin's vote. There were several issues adding up to make this a NO. Try focusing on giving the instruments their own space, and compare with professional songs to get the right shapes and balance.

NO (resubmit)

[Emunator]

Justin has a knack for nailing pretty much every issue with a mix in-depth and then finding some smaller nitpicks worth noting, too, so I'm going to echo him for the most part here. You've got a very strong concept and arrangement that's pretty enjoyable to listen to, but the clunky beat, somewhat unexpressive/odd synth choices, moments where the mix becomes overcrowded with too many different sounds going on (or, in some cases, too many similar sounds at the same time) and a handful of other nitpicky issues are all keeping this one below the bar. I think you've got an arrangement worth taking a second pass at though, I'd like to see what you can do with this! You've always got a great way of pulling totally unknown source tunes out of the blue and doing really creative stuff with them, but the production needs some help first so it can rise to the occasion

NO (resubmit!)

[Liontamer]

No hate, but OA and DA are high as kites to be YESing this, especially given some of the sections with barebones textures and corny default electrosynths. C'mon guys, for real? Y'all are too nice.

There are times, CJ, where you have some really cool instrumental combinations going on, like the harpsichord-style stuff and the intro ideas until :55. But there are other times where you have a lot of bland FL Studio default synths exposed with next to no modifications that stick out like a sore thumb.

Somewhat generic sounds to open things up, but some cool effects, as well as the vox samples being used to nice effect to create some cool textures. Pretty generic production for the electrosynths brought in at :55, with some stuttered drums that were cool, albeit rigidly sequenced.

Oh crap, super-bland FL Studio default gated synth at 1:45, along with the vanilla, generic synth lead at 2:03 and 3:09. Pretty lonely percussion stuff at 2:20. Not sure why those basic sounds were so prominent and the textures were so flimsy, when 2:46's section was markedly better by comparison (albeit not great). :55's section sounded so much more creative and cohesive by comparison as well.

I messed with FL Studio for a couple of hours back in 2002, and I heard a ton of the default sounds and effects used in this piece, which just sounds way too amateur and beginner-ish. That's not to say that, because I recognize the sounds, you're punished for it, but these default synths are very raw like Palpable said, and need to be refined, especially for the second half. They generally don't work well without further effort put into refining them.

There's not enough effort given to polishing the sounds up here and fleshing out these textures, and it just kills the arrangement ideas dead. I hate to gloss over the arrangement, because the source tune is clearly worked with, but the sounds are generally weak enough to make that discussion unnecessary.

So, in short, your arrangement has potential, so improve these currently lame areas: the lead and gating effects at 1:45, the lead at 2:03, the plain percussion at 2:20, and the lead at 3:09.

Sorry, CJ. I loved that Puggsy resubmission, so I know you can take your music to a much higher level. Step up the quality and consistantcy of your submissions, you can definitely get there!

NO

[DragonAvenger]

Alrighty, I'm not gonna let this sit any longer here. Listening again, I can hear what the gentlemen are saying on the other side of the fence, and hearing your work improve, I think you could take a look back at this one as well. I do think the arrangement is great, and there's some really cool ideas here. I look forward to hearing your submissions, and hope you fix this one up, specifically on Larry's advice.

NO (resubmit, please!)