OceansAndrew Posted July 13, 2011 Share Posted July 13, 2011 Remixer name: Brent Wollman User ID: 41181 Game arranged: Crysis 2 Name of Arrangement: Inescapable Destruction Name of individual songs arranged: Epilogue The game is on Xbox 360, PC, and PS3. The soundtrack is here: http://www.last.fm/music/Inon+Zur/Crysis+-+Original+Game+Soundtrack The problem is that I'm not sure if the track I remixed ( ) is on the soundtrack under a different title or something. Most of the soundtrack was done by Inon Zur, but I'm pretty sure the track that I remixed here is by Hans Zimmer.After getting my last sub rejected, I decided to back off and hone my skills for a while before trying again. This time I'm pretty confident that I can make the cut. I was going for a dark sounding blend of industrial electronica and hard rock. A bit like Nine Inch Nails sometimes. The mix may be a little conservative at times, but I believe there is ultimately plenty of interpretation on the source. I hope you all enjoy it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted August 9, 2011 Author Share Posted August 9, 2011 Interesting take on the source. The structure is way different, but the source connection is pretty clear throughout. I miss the grand presentation of the original a little bit, but the more energetic take is pretty cool and unique. I do think the guitars are a touch too far forward, and that the numerous transitions are a little distracting, but there is plenty of sonic variety. One thing is that a lot of the string samples feel really thin. The guitars are good but dry, the synths are fine, but the strings and piano sound pretty cheap by comparison. The arrangement is interesting but lacks a bit of cohesion between sections, and it feels like a lot of parts are cut and pasted, with new stuff tying them together. Overall it stumbles in a few areas, but is creative and references the source in a lot of new ways. Good luck with the rest of the vote. Yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I agree with almost everything Andrew wrote, but I'm just on the fence about this. I found it hard to really focus on the track due to how jumpy it was in terms of structure, and I felt like the piece didn't develop as cleanly as it could have from it. That being said, there are some cool arrangement ideas here, and the genre change and gritty overall mood is pretty cool for the track. I agree that the samples are basically good, aside from the strings and piano, which in comparison aren't holding their weight. I also felt the ending was a bit sudden, and could be fleshed out a bit. I'd say it's close, but I'm willing to let this squeak by. YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 My votes have been getting entirely too long lately, so I'm gonna cut this one down to bullet points: -Mixing in general needed some work - especially in the rock sections. Drums (minus the hats) were buried behind the guitars and the kick was nearly inaudible in sections like 1:17. Snare sounded really thin tone-wise as well. -Deia mentioned it, but the structure is kind've all over the place here, quickly shifting between rock & electronic sections. I'm not saying the combination of the two can't work, but this felt like it was a little too schizo for me. For example, it transitions from electronic to rock at :50, but only for 8 bars until we're back to electronic for 8 bars, before it's back to rock again for 8 more, etc. The rock sections felt very cut and paste from previous as well. I guess it just feels like the song flow is really unfocused. -Yeah the piano was far too dry and simple sounding at the end, but only appears for a short time. -Positive side: guitars sounded really nice to me; good performance and tone on both chugs and leads. Lots of subtle nice touches in the electronic sections. Arrangement-wise, I was having a little trouble picking everything out, so I stopwatched it: :00 - :11 - lead playing source :47 (these sections are what I was missing, hence the stopwatching) :12 - :22 - reversed backing part plays source :23 - :49 - source in bells :50 - 1:03 - source in rhythm guitars, modified later 1:04 - 1:16 - chords, liberal synth 1:17 - 1:33 - guitar playing same take as synth, I might be missing the connection here if there is one. 1:34 - 1:47 - same as :23 (source) 1:48 - 2:00 - same as :50 (source) 2:01 - 2:42 - chords? liberal IMO 2:43 - 2:55 - same as 1:17 (liberal) 2:56 - 3:39 - same as :00 (source) 3:40 - 4:22 - lead synth plays original melody (source) 4:23 - 4:45 - liberal Based on this, source checks out just fine. It took me quite a few listens to hear where you got everything from, but I feel like I've nailed it down now. It looks like you relied a lot on the backing part from the original, until we finally see the melody from the original hit at 3:40. Just a personal take, but I'd like to see the melody more prominently used in the mix. Well look at that, I still ended up with a really really long vote again :/. See if you can focus the structure and work on the mixing to balance things better and I think you'll be good to go. No, resubmit please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 Yikes, your rhythm guitars ARE really dry and up-front. Push those back a bit! Nice tone though, and some cool, unique performances/fx on the lead, I really like how they sync up with the synth elements of the track. The schizophrenic nature of the mix was a little bothersome to me, and your transitions felt like they were thrown in a little bit haphazardly or too frequently towards the end. Some work on the arrangement to keep it a LITTLE more focused, or alternatively, having more of the rock elements cross over into the electronic sections and vice-versa, would help out a lot, I think. The piano at the end just isn't fitting for me, I would seriously suggest reworking that or finding a different piano sample (or throwing a ton of reverb/fx on the current one.) Leaving some of that ambiance from the previous section would also help to mask the weak sample you've got. I had no issue with the strings, they sound about like I'd expect those super-high-octave strings to sound. Nutritious also pointed out some drum balancing critiques that I probably wouldn't have picked up on myself, as they don't seem like a huge deal to me, but it would be worth touching up. For a song that I can pull so many critiques for, I'm actually surprisingly borderline on this. It's a really solid arrangement that I enjoyed a lot, even with its flaws, and it's very close to the bar as-is. Still, I think it's a little too unpolished in its current form and could benefit from another set of revisions before posting. NO (please resubmit!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted December 1, 2011 Share Posted December 1, 2011 Oh Hans Zimmer. Always good for an overblown main theme. Yeah I can see why this decision is so split. There's so much awesome going on in this song, and it's rare for me to reject a song that has good production and no problem with source usage. There's tons of wonderful little details and some excellent arrangement ideas. To be fair the production is not perfect, and the dry, upfront guitars weren't great, but that wasn't a dealbreaker on its own. The biggest problem for me is the flow. This song is broken into chunks of measures and there's little to no connection between them. IMO, once you mix up the complete dropouts with some more subtle transitions, you'll easily get something passed here. Another way to give this more coherence is to not completely switch instrument sets between the rock and electronic sections. I think having the rock sections keep the electronic drums with maybe the drumkit cymbals thrown in would have sounded pretty sweet. That would have given this much more unity; as is, it kind of feels like you're switching back and forth between two radio stations. The piano didn't sound great but only when it was isolated, which was just a few seconds. Close call, but I'd like to push for another version. I feel like with some small changes, this could be very well received. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Thanks for Nutritious for his arrangement breakdown. I ended up not needing it very much because the source tune was surprisingly memorable enough for me to grasp and then compare with the arrangement. The source tune's definitely incorporated for most of the arrangement. Wow, this needs some production love. The drums were flimsy, the guitar tone was decent but needed more meat, the synth lead at 3:39 sounded pretty generic, and the soundscape sounded really dry and ultra-squeaky clean. This really needed additional effects to give the sounds added richness and depth. I'm really strongly disagreeing with Palpable on the production not being a dealbreaker. It's THE dealbreaker. Everything here sounded WAY TOO DRY, some of the sample quality was weak with no effects to help compensate, and it's pretty obvious production is where Brent needs to get some chops. There's nothing inherently wrong with these transitions, and IMO they don't need to be re-written. Much of the reason the changeups lacked flow is because almost everything was terribly dry and exposed. We've had WAY more dramatic instrumental transitions that nonetheless clicked. The soundscape was just too flimsy here, that's the main problem. Without adequate production techniques to provide a cohesive core soundscape and a rich sound, the style changeups came off more a lot more jarring than they should have, and the potential of the arrangement wasn't anywhere near realized. I hate to throw out the term "beginner-ish," because this isn't clipping, distorting or horribly imbalanced, but this track, production-wise, sounds beginner-ish. Right now, this sounds like a WIP where the arrangement is fully laid out, but the post-production hasn't been addressed yet. And that's unfortunate, because Brent's arrangement is safely a pass. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
halc Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 I didn't have any inherent problems with the arrangement, it was really dynamic and full of interesting ideas but I must agree that the production is an issue. not sure what to say about those guitars, but they are not well mixed. the rest of the stuff could make for some interesting soundscapes with some EQ and effects work, although I definitely recognize a good few of these presets. as Liontamer said, the sounds and mixing are amateurish. looking forward to hearing some more arrangements from you and seeing how your mixing improves. NO(resub) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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