djpretzel Posted May 23, 2005 Share Posted May 23, 2005 Hi djpretzel. Thank you for looking at this email. My screenname is Zoola, and im a newbie on OC remix. I'm submitting a remix of the song "Aquatic Ambiance" from Donkey Kong Country. I'm sure your familiar with it, and besides, you can look on your archives. This remix is sort of a synthy R&B remix. Its about 30 BPM slower, and I've obviously messed with this a bunch. There's actually no midi involved, as I played each part using my Roland Fantom-s88 keyboard and used Adobe Auditon as a multi-tracker to record it. The mp3 can be found at: My home page is at: http://www.mastergzoola.tk Thanks again, Zoola (John Torkington) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted May 23, 2005 Share Posted May 23, 2005 http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkc.rsn - "Aquatic Ambiance" (dkc-08.spc) Decent opening, playing around with some sweeping sounds. and 1:03 lays it down with the BEEtZ! Man, these ambient sounds sound lifted from the SPC if you ask me. It's like Protricity always said, if you didn't copy the sounds and they still sound the same as the original, you might as well have copied them anyway. I suppose they can be recreated pretty easily. 1:19, the beat gets all off, and you can just tell this will be uninterpretive and not innovative. And just as I'm typing that, the melody kicks in at 1:51; it's definitely a NO-go. The sounds supporting the lead coming in at 1:51 were detrimental choices, IMO. Listened to the whole thing. Great for the undemanding "gimme a cover" DKC music fan. Not bad, but the structure, style and compostion of the source material carries it. Gotta be more innovative nowadays. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harmony Posted May 29, 2005 Share Posted May 29, 2005 Individual elements, like the pads and the synth with the theme at 1:04 are really nice and have plenty of potential but the mixing, processing and arrangement is sloppy in general. The bass and the drums are absolutely dry (and quiet) which doesn’t mesh well with the reverbed and delayed synths. The lead synth at 1:19 is either off-tempo or pulls an awkward transition, pads at 2:00 and 2:33 play some odd notes, and there’s a classic midi note cutoff at 2:14. That last one really bothers me because I know that had you listened to this song as much as you should before submitting it you would have caught that and other slip ups. Interpretation isn’t really there either as most of what I hear is the original with something of a beat behind it. This needs plenty of remixing care and a lot of spice. The WIP and ReMixing forums are certainly great places to start so don’t be discouraged and keep working at it. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrayLightning Posted May 30, 2005 Share Posted May 30, 2005 What is it with DKC and all the super conservative/cover mixes of it? Also I don't agree with Larry, about how the melody comes in too late. Ambient/Atmospheric music has its own rules, and I wouldn't be too constrained about that. Speaking of the melody, I don't think it really fits in with the soundscape, it sounds grating and harsh in contrast. Production in general is definitely passable though. I liked some of the ideas and concepts here. It definitely sounds like you spent time on the mix as a whole, unfortunately, much of that time wasn't spent in the arrangement phase. Especially when a piece like this is so oft-mixed, you gotta bring some neat new interpretive ideas. Creativity is the name of the game, and here it's quite lacking. Those who like covers/conservative mixes will certainly like this, but that's not what OCR is about. Hope to hear more from you soon, but please work on the arrangement next time. Mix it up. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted June 1, 2005 Share Posted June 1, 2005 i'm not very familiar with the source material, but i've got to say the soundscape here is impressive. lots of great texture in this piece. unfortunately the melody doesnt really do justice to the atmosphere. it's just there for some reason. the arrangement isnt strong enough to warrant making this a remix instead of just writing your own song over the ambience. the bass gets particularly repetitive under the melody, by the way. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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