*NO* Metroid Prime 'Symbol of the Ancients'

[DragonAvenger]

Remixer name: AriesT

Website: http://www.youtube.com/AriesT1

Real name: Timo Hellmund

Name of the game: Metroid Prime

Name of arrangement: Symbol Of The Ancients

Name of the original songs arranged: Artifact Temple / Hall Of The Elders (Crossover)

Comment:

This is one of the 36 tracks on the Metroid 25th Anniversary tribute album "Harmony Of A Hunter".

Link to the arrangement:

Best Regards,

Timo Hellmund

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- Temple

- Hall

[OceansAndrew]

Some cool combination of instruments here, and the synth + string section is a classic. The 2 themes have a lot of inherent similarities that allow you to easily combine them, and the epic scale reflects the space atmosphere well. Some nice theme alteration fits a lot of good stuff into the structure, and though i think a little of the overall arrangement could have been trimmed slightly to feel a little less repetitious, the expansive feel that an extended arrangement affords is an acceptable tradeoff.

Overall pretty solid, nice work.

Yes

[DragonAvenger]

There really isn't much to add to what Andrew has said here. Overall the two themes fit pretty well together, and as such you've arranged them nicely. I also agree with Andrew that the song as a whole runs a little long, but it's no dealbreaker.

YES

[Emunator]

I'm a little bit more torn on this vote. In general, your string/orchestral work is pretty great. The panned brass arpeggio going in the beginning of the track feels a lot less realistic but still works with the sounds you've got going on.

However, after that, the synth that comes in really isn't interesting enough to hold up as a lead sound, to put it bluntly. The same can be said for pretty much any of the synths in this song that play lead melodies in here; to me, it just cheapens the feel of the song a little bit. To clarify though, all instances of various synth sounds in a backing instrumentation/soundscape role work just fine for me, but they don't hold up to muster when they're in the spotlight role.

Arrangement-wise, this is a really cool, seamless fusion of themes, though there's a few pieces of original writing in here that don't entirely fit the dramatic mood, such as the chord around 2:48. The melody gradually increases in intensity with each repetition, which fits with the very expansive, slow-building nature of the track, so that's good for me. The ending doesn't work as a fadeout though, I think you'd get much better results concluding your riff at the end of the song and leaving some sort of lingering string bow or just some ambient noise to give the conclusion of the song a chance to settle with the listener.

For the most part I feel like you got it mostly right with this mix, with just a few issues bringing it down. If this track doesn't end up passing, I hope you take these criticisms to heart and work with them to improve your remix and send it back. And if it does pass, that's still good because you've got a solid mix already that I think people will enjoy. Good luck either way!

NO (borderline, please resubmit!)

[Vig]

Definitely dig the vibe, but I feel like the melodies are the weakest part of the track. The vocals don't sound great, and it seems like much of the time when there's a melody going on, the harmony of the track gets dumbed down. The string writing is too simple to be the center of attention, but too intrusive to be atmospheric.

I would probably decide to rework this track in more of the direction of an atmospheric mood piece and tone down the strings, but that's not your only option.

NO

[Palpable]

Jesse and Wes said pretty much what I would. It's halfway between an atmospheric score-like track and a melodic one, because the leads used all sound like background instruments. I didn't get a good sense of what this track wants to be. Sometimes the backing strings themselves are used like a lead and they're also not strong enough. I also thought the drums were mixed down a little too far, and they never delivered the impact they were building up to, especially at 3:12. Your string work is excellent and I feel like that's a great base for the track, but the rest doesn't match that potential.

NO (resubmit)

[Nutritious]

I'm feeling most of the crits mentioned in the last few judgements here, so I won't rehash them. To add, though, the arpeggio string stabs came off as mechanical and unnatural sounding to me. Take a look at your note velocities to see if you can get it a bit more organic sounding - for example, start the run with low volume, crescendo through the top and the decrescendo to the end of the run.

Minor issue, but the sound cutoffs at :46, 2:18, & 3:12 transitions sounded a bit awkward to me - like halfway between gelling one section to another and a stark dropoff for effect. You may consider going with one or the other .

As mentioned before, there are a lot of cool arrangement and sound ideas here. The execution just needs to be tightened up.

No, resubmit please

[halc]

great sounds/processing, and a nice take on the themes. I have to agree that the melodic focus in this needs to be fixed. the song is beautiful, but the fact that the melodies are so repressed just makes it feel kinda dragged out, like I'm listening to four and a half minutes of string chords and piano arpeggios. let your leads drive the arrangement.

NO(resub)