New member! Chargeman & Dr. Wily GB

[MindWanderer]

Hello all! I'm new here, and this is my first attempt at anything musical since taking Music 101 about 15 years ago, so constructive criticism is very, very welcome. But try to avoid jargon, if you can, as I'm ultra-new at this.

The fatted lamb I bring to the table is ...But the Trains Always Ran On Time.

Source material:

Mega Man 5 (NES):

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (GB): Dr. Wily's Stage 1

My resources are pretty limited--I have a budget of $0 on a Linux machine--so if you have any production quality suggestions those are very welcome as well.

[Phonetic Hero]

I F$&!ING LOVE CHARGE MAN!!

The soundscape feels really thin, and there's a lot that could be added harmonically. and oddly enough I was pretty ok with the samples EXCEPT the square you used haha (on a second listen, the high brass could use some work or replacement). The drums are VERY static, I'd recommend some variation, more bass drum, and some cymbals in thar. Filling out the drums should fatten up the atmosphere a bit too.

Also, the structure seems very similar to Charge Man (and if you just had a cover in mind as opposed to an arrangement, that's totally cool), I think mostly because you've got the staggered arpeggios going throughout the whole piece. Maybe change up the arrangement a bit, and find some bits where you can use just the Wily 1 tune. It mashes up with Charge Man really well (I know both sources to a reasonable degree, I grew up on the GB Mega Man), but when you've got those arps going the whole time, the arrangement gets a bit stagnant. Also, some of the alternating violin/tuba bits feel really weird; take a look at those and do some doctoring where you feel it's necessary.

Keep it going, I'd love to see what happens with this

pH

[MindWanderer]

Thanks for the feedback!

Now, please forgive me, as, as I said, I'm really new at this....

Variation on the percussion line I understand and can do. Some bass drum would be welcome, cymbals... I'll think about that. I don't want too much harsh metal noise in there. And by the high brass, did you just mean from 0:17 to 0:29 ("trumpet"), or the horn part ("English horn") through the whole thing?

Odd that you said there was too much Charge and not enough Wily. From a purely source material perspective it's about 60/40. Melody-wise, from 1:23 to 2:39 is purely Wily, and most of the rest is either mixed harmony or not much like either source. The electric piano is from Charge Man and the bass line is from Wily.

I agree that the tuba is a bit weird, but it's hard to be faithful to Charge Man without it or something like it. I'll think that over, and maybe someone else will have a helpful suggestion.

[wildarms007]

Pretty good. Needs better drums & deeper soundscape to maximize its potential but you are on your way to it. Keep going, really am interested in final product.

[MindWanderer]

Revised per your recommendations. I pulled out the bass drums and gave them a whole lot more oomph and a little bit more variety. I mixed up the snare (maybe a bit too vampy, tell me what you think) and did add cymbals after all.

I also killed the goofy tuba entirely, just replacing it with a kettle drum hit and a continuation of the melody. A bit less faithful to the source material but I like the result. It does make the ending a smidgen weaker, I'll have to think of a way to shore that up a bit.

[metaphist]

I think you still have the same basic problems going on here.

Arrangement: Not bad, there's definitely enough going on with interpretation. But as mentioned above there's not enough distinction between different sections of your song. Since you keep the violins AND the arpeggio square throughout the entire mix, it just drags on after a while. You have to keep it interesting in some way, be it through instrument change, tempo change, style change, etc. Even something like a solo piano piece uses techniques to keep interest, even though it's still just one instrument.

Production: Your bass elements are extremely weak. The string bass could be brought down and octave (same note, but one whole section lower), and definitely needs some volume. As for the kick drum, I couldn't even tell there was one until minutes into the song, it's almost inaudible - crank it up!

I'll leave it at that for now. Once you take care of some of those basic problems this should really pick up. I loves me some MM5, so I'm looking forward to progress on this

[MindWanderer]

Thanks, that was incredibly helpful! A new version is up, with the following changes:

- I lowered the bass strings by an octave, but it became hard to hear the melody of them, and they were too quiet anyway, so I just doubled them, at both octaves. A nice combination of resonance and melody, I think.

- The bass drums were also doubled, and increased in volume a little on top of that.

- I also lowered the horns by an octave, to make them more distinct from the strings. The tone is now more melancholy than sweet, but it does make for more variety.

- I took a few of the string parts and moved them to a celesta. Also added a tiny amount of harmony for the celesta.

If it's still too monotonous, I can play around with the arpeggio and the bass strings, but I'd rather not if I don't have to--when I was first playing around with this mashup, I was struck by how effortlessly the two pieces went together, and the more I diverge from the source material, including the harmonies, the less advantage I can take of that serendipity.

[metaphist]

This version is already a lot better. Just adding that extra instrument does wonders for this in my opinion.

The bass is better as well, but I still have issue with that kick. It kind of sounds like a weak timpani rather than a normal kick. I know you also have an actual timpani in there, but the kick should be more of a normal drum kit kick in my opinion, more punchy, less verby/airy.

Hearing the celesta, however, instantly brings up another issue: humanization. Humanization is just what it sounds like - making your instruments sound more like they are being played by an actually human rather than sequenced on a computer. It's something most people need to add to their mix at some point, but it's painfully apparent in your celesta playing since you have those rapid note sections. They all the same volume and are spaced perfectly apart, which makes them sound very robotic. You humanize it by altering the volume and the timing of each note to mimic a human performance.

They way I like to humanize is by actually imagining I'm playing it myself. Whether or not you can actually play the instrument in question is less important when your starting out. Just imagine your actually hitting each note, would you hit the first note hard and taper off on the rest? Would you do the opposite? If the section is exciting, you might hit each note slightly early in anticipation - if it's calm, you might be very gentle and hit more notes late, etc. Hopefully you're working in a program that easily lets you edit volume and timing.

That's it for now, keep working on it!

[MindWanderer]

Hm.

I tried my hand at humanization on the celesta, jogging several of the notes forward or backward by 1/64 note, and altering the volume by +/- 20%. It's too subtle for my ear, but I'm no audiophile. It's been uploaded.

As for the kick, I'm very confused because there isn't one. There was in version 2, to replace the very low notes in the Charge Man theme, but I replaced it with a bass orchestra hit in version 3. There's an orchestra bass drum (timpani), snares, hi-hats, and cymbals, and that's it for percussion.

[metaphist]

Been a bit busy, probably give it a listen tomorrow though.

[metaphist]

So you may have a different version by now, but I'll comment on what you have up.

Better again, I can hear the humanization but it's still not enough for the rapid parts. They sound like a telephone ringing, don't you agree? You need to find some real performances of that type of playing and emulate how it sounds. Check out some stuff like this

It's obviously a different style, but it will give you an idea of how drastic you can go on the levels and timing.

Don't forget to apply the same attention to detail on your percussion (specifically that hi hat). I called your timpani a kick because IMO you were using it more in the kick sense than in a timpani sense. I'm not sure a timpani lends itself well to such regular usage, since it blends into itself and tends to overwhelm the sonic space. It's generally more of a climatic instrument for intense sections or one's that are building energy, not a regular part of the percussion.

The arrangement is starting to come together as well. However, I still feel you need a more contrasting section to break up your mix. Around the middle when you switch to the Wily Theme, you change things up a bit, but you should expand upon that. You could for instance have a completely different instrument for the beginning of the Wily theme, and build back to a return to your original sound for the rest. It's still rather "vanilla" in terms of the overall tone, and still gets a bit boring by the end.

Even if you have a different version now, the advice is still general enough to apply. Look forward to the next versions.

[MindWanderer]

I was working on something else while waiting for feedback, so no new version yet anyway.

I'll work on the rapid celesta. I switched to the timpani because you mentioned that the kick I was using wasn't resounding and bassy enough, but I'll see what I can do with it going back to a regular kick drum.

As for the middle where the transition to Wily is, what I wanted to avoid, since this is a mashup, was the two themes sounding tacked together. That's why this is the most repetitious part of the song, instrumentation-wise.

[MindWanderer]

Minor update uploaded. (Since we're on page 2: ...But the Trains Always Ran On Time)

Drums switched to a low, resonant tom; Rosegarden doesn't support multiple true percussion tracks, as near as I can tell, even though I'd prefer a true acoustic bass drum with some reverb. The rapid celesta sections have had the volume modulated a bit. Note that if you're going for realism, the celesta is a keyboard instrument, so the "style" in the video doesn't really apply.

I have mixed feelings about humanizing the hi-hat. It's the "train" noise, so having that regular, chugging beat is a big part of the point. I'd love to hear another perspective on this.

[MindWanderer]

More minor edits to the percussion, but mostly marking this as finished since it landed on page 2 without further comments. Feedback is still strongly appreciated.

[MindWanderer]

Since there haven't been any additional comments and I'm going to be away from my computer for a week, I'd like a mod to take a listen some time before I come back.

[Emunator]

This isn't a bad arrangement, there's some pretty unorthodox instrument combinations here, but with the right samples and production it could definitely happen.

However, the sample quality is pretty weak, as is the production overall. Your instrument balance is off, particularly with the bass, which doesn't sound much like a bass at all because of how high it's playing and how dry of a sound it's got. The samples across the board need to be upgraded, I'm not sure how else to put it :S See what you can do about procuring some better instrument packs and revisit this arrangement someday, it's definitely got potential but I don't think this is passable as it is and probably wouldn't be able to even with more solid production, I hate to say it

Keep improving and looking around for free samples (there's a ton of resources on the [link=http://ocremix.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=12]Music Composition and Production forum[/link] that might steer you in the right direction Best of luck!

[MindWanderer]

Hm. Well, I'm disappointed, but thank you for your time and honesty.

The odd thing is, I'm using Fluid R3, which is widely considered to be one of the best free soundfonts available, and I've tried a few. If this one isn't good enough, then none of them are, and without a paid program I'm wasting my time. Better to know now, though.