DragonAvenger Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 At the time of writing, we haven't had more than a morning of snow here. In mid December. Winter doens't have a good grasp of the seasons. This track is basically what happens when you take my beautiful, filtered-drums-y, kick-less style and fuse it with my groovy, thick and messy style. Half the sounds are from Eye of the Storm. I wanted to do more Zelda, and ended up with this one because there's very few good wintery tracks in the Zelda franchise. I also snuck in a melody from ALttP because the source seemed to be based on that track. "Winter's Grasp" source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU-_qBshJXc (Temple of Droplets, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap) -rozo (#21613) ps there's two versions of it in the upload dir, one of which is too large for ocr. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 I really like the soundscape on this track, even if it pulls very heavily from a past remix. Comparing this to Eye of the Storm though, I don't feel like your mixing/sound pallet is quite as strong. Some issues that I notice right off the bat: your bass is super-loud! It sounds good for the initial bass drop, but past that point it's too dominant in the mix. Your piano sound is also problematic, in my opinion. I can see how this might be somewhat of a personal preference issue, but the sample you've got right now seems annoyingly bright, mid-heavy, and a lot more harsh than this genre calls for (perhaps it's overcompressed? Not sure about that.) It's most noticeable when the sample is exposed, such as during the last minute of the song. Your writing is pretty solid across the board. Despite a few sections where things get crowded (2:10 comes to mind, for instance,) most of the melodies play well together. The arrangement has the same meandering quality as Eye of the Storm but I never had a problem with that approach to begin with, so all's good here. Source usage definitely checks out. Ultimately I feel like this is a close call due to a strong arrangement, but there's a few mixing issues that are really detracting from my enjoyment of the mix. I'll keep this even if you choose not to resubmit, but I think you've got a very solid foundation that just needs another coat of polish before it'll be an easy pass for me. NO (resubmit!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted March 15, 2012 Author Share Posted March 15, 2012 Emu hit most of the points that I wanted to address. The arrangement has a lot of good things going on, but I felt like the second half got to be a little too meandering and sparse. The two areas that stick out the most are starting at 2:58-3:49 with the extended chords. Having a chord-only section is fine, but nearly a minute feels pretty long. The other section is 4:57-end where the bass disappears (it's a pretty long time to be top-heavy like that). Overall I would have liked a stronger direction for that half of the song. I'll echo Emu on the production as well; the bass is just too loud, and the piano feels a little too fake and thin to me. I am also not crazy about the bells sample, but I can live with it. hit up some of those production changes for sure, and maybe cut a bit of the fat from the arrangement. Hope to see this again! NO(resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted March 15, 2012 Share Posted March 15, 2012 Emu had a lot of good advice. I too liked the writing ideas even though it was a little abstract. The mixing was problematic in that everything was so disparate, it never gelled. The bass is in-your-face and playing these quick notes, the drums are high-filtered, and the piano and some of the synths were on the piercing side. You may have been shooting for using these sounds in a unique way and you definitely had a clear soundscape, but I think there needed to be more in the low-mid range. Felt like there wasn't any meat to this song. Even stylistically it's a little weird, because the bass suggests something energetic, but the other instruments suggest ambient. Sorry, gonna push for another version, Rozo. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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