Southern Fried Rattlesnake

[imthinkinmac]

I'm looking for feedback and suggestions for this remix before I submit it to the judges. I took Snakey Chantey from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest and gave it a southern/country theme. I don't know if "Southern Fried Rattlesnake" would be considered an awesome title, but it's what I randomly named it before I began work on it. Enjoy.

http://www.newbeginningtechnologies.com/files/page0_1.mp3

[Gario]

I love the steel string work in this track. It just sounds so... steel-y. The rest of the instrumentation is fitting for the genre. Be careful with that piano that plays the melody, though - it's too quiet, and in the middle of the track (~1:52) it seems to get out of time significantly. It's pretty central to the track, so bring it to the front a bit more, and don't pan it too far to the left.

Some of the harmonic interpretations aren't too convincing in my book, but that might just be personal taste. They aren't bad, per se, but a bit boring. It just sounds like you use the root chord too often when the original spiced it up with plenty of interesting applied chords.

A proper ending would do this track wonders. The fade out feels like a cop-out. Let's have a nice, solid ending to the track

As I said before, the instrumentation is very fitting. It seems to wash over me after a while, though - five minutes with the instruments doing the same thing is exhausting to my ear. I for one would love, for example, to hear the guitar take control of the melody once or twice, or have a nice solo with the piano without drums and guitar, or something to change it up. You break it up texturally from time to time, which is great, but it needs more.

The drums are pretty weak. I'm not asking for D&B or anything, but a simple boom-chick beat is very lackluster. Don't be afraid to use hats or fills, or something.

I love it, actually. I could see something like this becoming a healthy part of OCR in the (relatively) near future, but I think it has some touch up that needs to be done before it can get on there. Hope to hear more from you - this is some great stuff.