donkey kong 2 bayou boogie (trance remix)

[Sunn]

Hi everyone, i wanted to share this trance remix of this song from donkey kong country 2. the original song itself isn't that exciting or anything, but i thought that it had all the right atmospheric elements to become a great trance song, and hopefully i was right.

this song is pretty old and the quality is, well, pretty bad. my skills have definitely improved since then. however, quality issues aside this is still probably my favorite song that i've made. i don't plan on actually submitting this song or anything. more than anything else this is just my introduction into the community. i have been working on remaking this song again, properly mixed and overall just better quality, however no matter what i do, it always seems to lose the feel that this one creates, so a remake is on hold for now.

anyway, here's the source:

and here's a youtube and soundcloud link. sorry for the low volume, but there's nothing i can do about it now =/

http://soundcloud.com/sunn-5/dkc2-music-bayou-boogie-trance

[Chiwalker]

Buildup was great! I felt the break into the full melody was not full of enough energy though (I would use more distorted saw synths with higher freq. range, but I'm a sucker for that sound)

The tempo felt a little quick and could stand to go down a few bpm.

But overall very trancey and ambiently produced, really liked this mix.

[Sunn]

thanks a lot! that's better feedback than i was expecting lol. i definitely agree about the break, that was always an issue i had with this song. but this is an old song and i didn't really have much experience with changing the energy levels and such, if i were to ever complete a newer version of this i would definitely expand on that part and extend it out longer. interesting thought about the bpm.. that never occured to me, but it's something i'll have to check out. thanks again for the feedback.

[DaMonz]

First of all, welcome to the boards!

This is a great first post! ^^ I agree that the buildup is nice. The arrangement could use some more melodic/harmonic variations in my opinion. I really like the ambiance you've got going on there.

Also, I think your bass sound is way too low-profile, like it's been treated like an accessory.

I'm not a good trance reference, but this sounds pretty cool, especially for a first post. I'd like to hear some of your more recent stuff!

[Sunn]

thanks, yeah the bass is, well, terrible lol. i sucked at basslines, they're still one of my weaker points. but whenever i change it, it seems to lose the deep, dark sound. still trying to figure out how to remedy that. thanks for the warm welcome, and if you'd like to hear what my recent work sounds like you can check out my soundcloud which i linked in the first post, although i don't upload much there. this song is my most recent, and best work:

[DaMonz]

Whoa, that's great progress indeed! I think the snare could use some more punch, but maybe it's just me.

Maybe something you could try to fix your bass problem is to layer your bass with additional sounds, instead of just changing it. I don't know if it could fix the problem, but it's worth a try! ^^ Playing around with an EQ (I'm especially thinking about the mids) might help too.

[Sunn]

yeah i'm thinking the eq might be the best way to go, when i made this track i knew basically nothing about mixing and mastering. i still don't know much, but i know enough that i could improve upon the bass some.