*NO* Secret of Evermore 'ante meridiem'

[djpretzel]

My "remixer name", after much consideration, is Procrustes (if you know your Greek mythos, this pseudonym is either really badass or super cheesey). My real name, which is much more plain, I can assure you, is Dylan Napier. Email address? In case you don't already know, is dj.skratch.n.sniff@gmail.com. My userid on your forums? Honestly, I don't know what that means. My user name is Skunk Face... Oh wait, submission requirements say "not user name". Sorry. Anywho, here's where you can find the song at:

Well, my first submission comes from a little game called Secret of Evermore. In all honesty, I'm surprised only one other has done a remix from this game so far; it has an excellent score by the excellent Jeremy Soule. I call the mix Ante Meridiem, and it is a remix of two songs: the opening credits theme and the theme of a character named Fire Eyes. Both awesome songs alone, but they happen to be in the same time signature and tempo, so I took advantage of this. I noticed that you do not have this game's score in your sound archive so here's a link:

http://www.snesmusic.org/v2/profile.php?profile=set&selected=2282

I fell in love with video game music when I was 11. Up until then I just thought of them as being full of catchy blips and bleeps but, heh, when I fought captain K. Rool in DKC 2, I realized that it could be so much more than that (Protricity's KRool Intentions is one of the most badass remixes on your site!). So, here I am nearly ten years later, making remixes of the midis I've grown to love so much.

I chose this song in particular because, after listening to the one and only other SoE remix on your site, I played the game (after about a six year hiatus) and realized what a beautiful score it has. I threw in a few amateurish ambient effects, but this was intentional (for the game is chock full of 'em). Also I used Fruity Loops 4 and nothing but presets, well there's a kicking synth from Absynth too, I guess.

Hopefully it doesn't sound too much like that's all I used; I tweaked a lot of the effects. I'm getting FL5 soon so future mixes, if any, should be of higher quality. Hope you all enjoy it!

p.s.: that's crazy that you (assuming dj pretzel is actually the one who reads these) just did a remix of Wind from Naruto, because I was just working on one too. I had never heard a song in 5/4 before so it was hard to bob my head to it at first, but man, is that a great tune or what?

[Liontamer]

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/soe.rsn - "Introduction" (soe-02.spc) & "Fire Eyes" (soe-19.spc)

I liked the opening wind FX, though that groaning synth from :20-:54 had some odd note patterns that didn't harmonize well with the other elements. Some strings brought in the melody from "Introduction" at :51. The note movements were alright, but some sounded a bit jerky & inhuman; didn't bother me after several listens though. Not really anything particularly interpretive or expansive here, though the style did switch up a bit from 1:24-1:56. Audio glitch at 1:54.

"Fire Eyes" arrived at 2:02 after a complete lack of a coherent transition. No new ideas compared to the source at all; might as well have been a rip of the SPC with some of the voices muted for all I know. In any case, relatively uncreative. I really liked the chiptune-ish stuff finally brought into the picture at 2:34, but again, nothing there that wasn't lifted verbatim from the source tune.

After some more quasi-transition stuff at 3:18, 3:21 featured some VERY random drum patterns until 3:36 moved back into the first section with some odd effects on it. Terrible last section. Uncreative and bleh all around, and that's being nice despite hearing the source.

NO

[Harmony]

Yeah I liked the intro as well but there’s a click at the beginning of each piano note that should be eliminated. A really short attack would do the trick. Similar problem with the decay of the toms at 2:02. We can hear the static from each note abruptly cut off.

Arrangement is very conservative to say the least. Also, there are way too many sections here where pretty uninteresting elements are left alone and exposed (1:23,2:02, 3:07,…) and the sparse vibe isn’t working here at all. In this case I think the original is better than the mix. Next time Procrustes, work on the sample processing, add more creative arrangement ideas, throw in some more instruments in the empty sections, add a pinch of spice and mix well. Keep working at it.

NO

[analoq]

i'm telling you now:

this vote is a gip, it doesn't help.

this sounds really lo-fi

this is really empty and boring.

empty can be good, minimalism and all.

boring can be good for a while, but there's gotta be something redeemable about it to make it worth listening to.

sorry, i hear nothing worth listening to...

no

[GrayLightning]

Analoq is right, this is very, very lo-fi sounding.

I honestly don't know where to begin on suggestions, this needs a lot of work compositionally, conceptually and in production.

For a minimalistic/atmospheric mix there's not much going on here in the way of density, or interesting atmosphere. I would use more reverb here, preferably with modulation to spice up the atmosphere. More eq work is definitely necessary. This mix is in need of more treble work, it sounds so muddy.

What this needs is an anchor, perhaps start the base of such a mix with an interesting pad. The very sparse sections of the mix don't at all work either.

Needs a lot more work and please use the WIP forum to get more feedback before submitting. NO