djpretzel Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 Hi! This song was my entry for the People's Remix Competition 40. Note: I am using a passage from Danny Elfman's "Men in Black" theme here. Remixer name : Sleepy Emp Real name: Dmitry Ferentsev Email: sleepyemp@gmail.comREMIX UserID: 12945 Remix title: Men in Black Pants Game: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Source : http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/gba/CVAoS-ClockTower.mid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The wingless Posted June 10, 2005 Share Posted June 10, 2005 well first of all, kudos on the clever usage of Gmail. Mayhap Pretzel should bring this up somewhere on the site. But first, how about some legal-eez? What's our policy on stuff that sounds like other stuff off of major hollywood soundtracks? Say, I don't know, Men in Black. And let's further suppose that the recreation of Danny Elfman's signature sound is so cleverly reproduced as to call into question some issue of copyright. Sure, you say to yourself, we do that sort of thing all the time. Ah, but that's video gamey stuff, not hollywoody stuff. I don't want Morgan Freeman comin' down on my ass with all the fury of MPAA hell. And now, something different. (assuming Neil Shaprio gives us the green light) I really like this piece. The spirit of Danny Elfman and his hideous Bridgetroll daughter live on in this song. Great dynamics, texture, and all around -emotion-. I'm all for it, cause that's the men in- that's the men in- men in black. yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted June 15, 2005 Share Posted June 15, 2005 Yeah, I remember this one from VGF59, since it won PRCv2-14. Very cool track, and I had no particular problem with the way the track was produced. The panning was pretty distinct, which I liked, although I felt this could have sounded crisper/sharper without undermining the piece. Also remember, we have a 192kbps encoding limit. In any case, the first 32 seconds featured some arranged CV material, mostly heard in the plucked strings. :33-:51 went into full MIB remixing mode. :54 seemed wholly original; couldn't tell ya where it's from. Then 1:14-1:38 went into some other section that I vaguely recognize, but I don't believe that's CastleVania; maybe it's another section of MIB score material? I definitely recognize the source tune being arranged at 1:39, and it's even more recognizable from 1:51-2:03, but then you just went back into the MIB material at 2:03 and closed with that. Why would you submit this here expecting it to pass OCR? Start up "Moo-vee ReMix" and submit it there. WAY more Men in Black score used here than Aria of Sorrow, and I didn't even recognize all the parts you used. Cool stuff for Mother Russia, but no dice. Thanks go out to Shnabubula for providing the clip of the MIB score to check out as well. NO Just a side thought, Dmitry, but have you ever tried to do a Tetris mix? I'd really like to see you submit one here, so I could show my mother some Russian folk music remixed by a fellow Russian! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danny B Posted June 27, 2005 Share Posted June 27, 2005 A huge part of this track is either directly lifted from the MIB soundtrack or very well-recreated. I would say less than 10% of this track is related to the original (basic chord progression aside). Nice recognition of similar tunes, and an acceptable job of melding them together, but we don't deal with these kind of arrangements here. NO -D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Ascher-Weiss Posted June 27, 2005 Share Posted June 27, 2005 Castlevania Aria of Sorrow 2: Soma Cruz becomes Agent S and goes up against an army of evil alien Belmonts. As you mentioned the sections from 0:33 to 0:45, 2:03 to 2:16, and 2:27 to 2:40 all sound like direct quotes from the Men in Black soundtrack [the only difference being that yours moves chromatically up first instead of down]. That's a total of 0:38 seconds. The entire ReMix is 2:51. So now let's do some math. 2:51 minus 0:38 equals 2:13. One loop of the source tune takes exactly 1:37 however your ReMix is slower than the original so I estimate that if we slowed the original down to the same speed as your mix it would be approximately 1:50. That means that even if you spent every non MIB moment of your mix dealing with the source, which you do not, then you would only be spending 23 more seconds with the material than the original did. Your actual coverage of the original consists of the following: From 0:50 onwards the staccato strings [which sound detuned] doubled by a harp play the accompaniment figure from the source. Starting at 0:55 a batallion of heavily reverbed orchestral instruments play slow lines outlining the chords. There are some nice harmonies here. The orchestration is particularly good at 1:25. Very good use of brass. Excellent sounding samples. Some of this sounds like what Michiru herself might of done had she chosen to orchestrate this piece. At 1:50 the main melody comes in with some charleston timpanis. You never leave the Fminor G/F Gb/F F progression here. There is alot more happening harmonically in this section of the original. That's it! That's pretty much all you use from the source. There are another 50 seconds of material in the original that you never even touch. Your orchestration relies heavliy on the quality of your samples and reverb in order to make up for the lack of complexity. This alone is not reason enough for a rejection. All you need to do is pay more attention to the original and this would be fine. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djpretzel Posted June 27, 2005 Author Share Posted June 27, 2005 The game to original to MIB ratio here is the most problematic aspect to me. I concur with the above statements regarding this point and am closing out with the fourth NO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts