Liontamer Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 Your ReMixer name - Omigadrive Featuring VikingGuitar Your real name - Glenn Elliott Your email address - glennelliott19@yahoo.co.uk Your website - N/A although the track is from Vampire Variations so " Www.vampirevariations.com " if you need one. Your userid - 46074 (Hope I got that right =D) Link to Track Games arranged - Castlevania, Super Castlevania IV Arrangement name - Veneficus Mens Mentis (Variations on a Theme of Simon) Songs Used - Poison Mind, The Theme of Simon Belmont and an ever so tiny tip of the hat to Bloody Tears. I'm going to assume the information on this track is already on the site since well... it's Castlevania! This is the track I did for the upcoming Vampire Variations album. It's based on a fairly old idea I had of using the 4 chord rhythm from the intro of The Theme of Simon Belmont with the melody work of Poison Mind. I can't speak much for the technical side of things since my musical knowledge is limited to knowing what a C and D chord is and that is it but the track is laid out to evoke the feeling of Simon Belmont taking on a boss. I kept the segment using Simon's Theme close to the original except for the choice of instrumentation here and there. My reason for that was that it is ultimately a small section of the song by comparison and yet for only 1 minute and 30 seconds of music the original track just had that much going on to begin with. I took a few more liberties with the Poison Mind segments, playing around with subtle yet different rhythms to the chord progression used beneath the melody lines and extending runs from the main melody into something that I felt was more fluid. VikingGuitar provided the guitar solo towards the end as well as doing the final mastering of the track. If I had anything technical to add, I would... really need to find where I put that music theory book. Glenn (Omigadrive) Ps; If I messed something up in the submission I'd appreciate you letting me know for the future =D ------------------------------------------------------------ - "Poison Mind" - "Theme of Simon Belmont"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMvLGEys2WU - "Bloody Tears" Arrangement-wise, it's pretty melodically conservative, so most of the interpretation comes from the live performances and supporting instrumentation. It's probably enough to get by IMO, though more melodic interpretation would have been welcome. The string triggering didn't sound natural, but it was serviceable enough to get by. The supporting instrumentation in many areas felt too soft or sparse, leaving the overall soundscape emptier than you'd expect (e.g. the drums always, the slowly bowed strings from 3:26-3:42, vox from 3:10-3:25 & 3:50-4:04). Don't know if it's just me, but the plain-sounding drum writing (:54-1:11, 1:18-2:14) dragged this down for me, particularly during the Theme of Simon bridge (1:34-1:50). Things finally got more progressive at 2:38 to at least lend some energy and dynamics to the rest of the track, though the drum tone itself lacked power. The drum writing clearly doesn't need to be that crazy all the time, but the beginning patterns need some more creativity and energy. Some solid shredding (I'm assuming from VikingGuitar) at 4:06 for about 10 seconds (sounded great!), followed by some male choir stuff before hitting the strings & organ and then finally moving into some cool harpsichord stuff at 5:05 for the close. I'm liking the overall concept, but the execution needs some more power and polish. If you're willing to take another pass at the drums & the production to beef some of the sounds up and fully realize the potential here, I'd love to hear it. Hopefully the other Js can give some more targeted production advice. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Larry covered pretty much all of the important points of the mix. I will agree with some of the sparser sections could be spruced up a bit to fill things out more. The drum writing was something else I noticed as well, and it would definitely benefit with some more personalized writing. There are some areas that feel like they're missing the higher and lower end of things. I'd look into finding ways to balance out your sounds more to add more in the bass especially, and some higher end stuff where appropriate. 2:30 felt like a miss for me; the chorus feels just slightly behind the beat, and unnatural due to the speed and jumps in the melody that would be pretty difficult to sing well. I'd pull the chorus out or change it to a more supporting role on certain notes. The guy chanting that comes in later works pretty well, though. Overall I think you've got a lot of good arrangement here, and for the most part the sounds you've chosen work well. There's a lot of little details in the production that are adding up to make this fall short. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 The intro was really nice, and the song built up pretty well. The earlier string attacks had too strong of velocities, and sounded a little comical and unnatural, but the samples are good enough. Adjust the velocities down a little, and that'll be good. I feel that throughout the guitar leads are a touch too quiet, as is the bass. I think that is where some of the missing power could be added in. I do agree with Larry that the drums aren't really sounding super powerful; i think some EQ would get them to sound less hollow. The combination of themes is pretty good, and overall the performances are solid, the intro, outro, and solo specifically were impressive. Overall this definitely has the foundation of a song that would make it, it just needs a little more polish. I'd love to hear a resub. No, please resubmit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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