OCR01390 - *YES* Super Metroid 'Energy Tank'

[djpretzel]

email file: Super_Metroid_Energy_Tank_OC_ReMiX.mp3

Hey what's up. I've been a fan of oc remix for awhile and decided that I should make a remix to see if I got what it takes. heres my remix info:

Remixer Name: Matt Drouin (i'm not creative enough to think of a remixer name)

Real Name: Matt Drouin

E-mail Address: The13thAce@hotmail.com

Name of Game Remixed: Super Metroid

Name of the Remix: Energy Tank

Comments:

This mix was started out pretty randomly, I was messing around trying to

come up with various intro techniques for a trance song, and then the song

from the brinstar section of super metroid randomly popped into my head and

I was like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH"...... well actually it was more like

"hey maybe I should incorperate that melody into this beat somehow" or

something. There may be somethings i could have done to this to make it

better but all in all i'm pretty satisfied with the way it turned out.

The genre for this mix *if for some reason you haven't figured out by

now.... maybe you could've spilled like peanutbutter or something on the

exact position of your screen that the words hinting at the genre are

located* is Trance. While it's not the only type of music enjoy, I figured

trance is a popular genre on OC remix so it'd probably be a good place to

start my ULTRA-PLATINUM DEBUT......................... heh... yea... I came

up with a name for this song after much debate with my friend, who wanted me

to call it "Brinstar Dance Club" and i was all like "N!O". eventually after

too much thinking I just fired up the game and found an energy tank.... ding

ding.

anyways, i hope you enjoy my remix

[Sam Ascher-Weiss]

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sm.rsn - "1-20 Super Metroid - Brinstar Star Red Soil Swampy Area"

DAMMIT! I liked this song.... but It doesn't qualify as a remix in my mind. You used one of the figures from the source over and over and vaguely hinted at the melody on occasion, then at 2:20 you bring it in on a pwidthmod pad where it's being covered up by other instruments and only lasts for a little while.

YOU NEEDED TO BRING THAT MELODY IN EARLIER AND BUILD THE SONG AROUND IT! Also the one part of the original that you do keep throughout.... you changed two of the notes! In your key [the original was in Eb and you moved it to F] it should have been F, Bb, F, F, Bb, Eb but you replaced all of the B flats with Cs and sometimes added Ab, Bb, or Bb, C at the end which gets rid of all the phrasing! Normally there's nothing wrong with this, however when you're depending on that one motif by itself to represent your sourcetune for most of the song, you'd better not tamper with it!

Okay anyway, there's a lot of good stuff here but it doesn't matter because this isn't truly a remix... it's an original featuring some super metroid material.

Vote change

[Liontamer]

Nah, I feel the way this was used, the source material was used the whole way through; the buildup for the first two minutes counted for me. Not really much actual rearrangement or interpretation going on, though I liked that light wind-like instrument coming in around 1:31 with quiet support.

When things picked up at 2:19, the claps & beats were a good idea, but they were very flat. The whole track is muddy and cluttered. I say that about a lot of tracks, you frequent J-Decision readers will notice. From 2:19-3:07, you had so many pads and all that crud flowing around that you often couldn't even hear the lead synth and certainly couldn't distinguish individual sounds from that mass of noise.

The mix was, like Shna alluded to, original material simply wrapped around the source tune. Not the right formula, though you finally got the right idea at 3:50 (though that mechanical piano's gotta be humanized).

Refine your arrangement approach in future material and get help with your production to get a cleaner sound from the ReMixing forum.

NO

[The wingless]

Is it just me, or is that bassline way to phatty in the introduction? It's so thick, even though it's staccatto, it comes across as one sustained note.

Other than that, I really, really liked this song, though as some of you may recall, I have a bit of a bias to this song. It's not the cleanest mix by any stretch of the imagination. The reverb is set to "BiYOU MUDDY", which is really evident on the hi-hat on the drumloops. But it really, *really* captures the feel of the techno-genre (oh noes, arguements about teh definishun of techno!). Concerns about the source material, I feel, are valid, but wholly contestable, as I can hear plenty.

In classic Wingless style, I'm going against the grain and voting yes.

Go ahead, motherfuckers, say no. Say no again! I dare you, I double-dog dare you.

YES

[Vig]

I'm strongly with wingless on this one. The interpretation is quite liberal, to be sure. Most of the artistic liberties are taken with the chord progression, which was quite minimal in the original. There's plenty of precedent for this kind of artistic liberty being taken with posted mixes. I've done it myself, and some of wingless's best work sounds even less like the original than this.

with that in mind, this composition in and of itself is incredibly dynamic, interesting, well produced and composed. Frankly i think this piece is orders of magnitude above some of the other mixes that are ending up as close calls on the panel.

strong YES

[Sam Ascher-Weiss]

okay, okay. I have no qualms with this mix on a compositional level. My only concern was that it was too liberal on interpretation... but my word is not LAW and my fellow judges Convinced me that I was wrong on this matter.

I love the piano stuff at the end, all the sounds work for me, the structure of the arrangement with the beginning excitement opening up into a moment of calm before the drums crescendo their way back in. All top notch stuff! So I'm changing my vote to

YeS

[GrayLightning]

Ok, this is tricky. I listened to the source material and recognized this instantly.

I have no problems with the arrangement liberalness, it's really not that liberal in my view. I mean, Wingless, Israfel, Zyko and I have been known to really change things around much more significantly than this. To me this is a valid arrangement, I can hear it easy enough.

BUT, I can't help but agree with Larry on this one. Some parts of this are extremely cluttered, due to the enormous reverb tail/delays. It's really slightly too much, it makes things muddy and makes things gel too much. There is nothing wrong with that, lots of electronica like trance do this, but it's all about context. For me, in this context it just doesn't work.

Synths and synth designs are pretty generic to me, there are some nice bits here and there, like the choir pads and the synths are a least thick. But I think it needs some more polish on the production side of things. More EQ to separate things a bit, less reverb/delays.

The drums/perc rub me the wrong way, everything sounds thin you got the kick and a lot of high frequency stuff going on - is there a high pass filter on this? I wish there was some more meat in the middle frequencies, the mix seems to be dominated by low and high frequencies.

I'll say this though, the ending sections were nice, with some good string writing.

This grows on you, but at this point, I think it needs some more work in the execution and production department. While the arrangement is pretty good, I'm not prepared to say it overcomes the other concerns.

NO

[Harmony]

This is a wonderful rearrangement that takes the source to some pretty creative places. I wish more of the piano was scattered about rather than tacked on the end but the intermediate energetic synths and constantly developing composition round this piece out nicely. Sadly though I’ve got to NO this because from start to finish one thing after another muds up the scene. Tone down the thick bass, work on de-cluttering 2:20-3:07, shorten the reverb decays and knock off some low frequencies and my YES is ready to go.

NO (PLEASE Resubmit)

[danny B]

I don't agree that the bass "muds things up" here. It sounds to me like a very intentional atmospheric effect, and as such, I don't think it's appropriate to call it detrimental.

At 1:20, there's a breakdown that sounds pretty deliberate in nature. By itself, the synth is a bit strange, but the incoming instrumentation more than makes up for it. Then, the source material comes in and very adeptly covers the source. There's a nice little improv, it's not over-the-top crazy synth solo, but it's definately adequate to add to the original. Again, it gets pretty dense here (notice "dense", again - not "muddy") and intensifies, leading into a dynamically creative outro. It avoids all cliche as an ending and does well to wrap things up.

If I had to nitpick, i'd say that the length of the intro insinuates a longer track, and I sure would love to hear another minute or so on this one, perhaps a bridge section or some type of chorus reiteration, but that's subjective and doesn't affect my judgement.

It's a little odd to me that other, less interesting mixes that were more ambient in nature have been passed, but this is contested. It's an interesting and well-executed mix, and I don't think that the sound quality issues brought up are anything more than opinions. I've heard muddy tracks, and this is anything but unpleasant muddiness. This ReMix adequately and creativly uses the original to a new effect, and without major technical issues, it should be more than enough to get the go-through.

I'm a fan. GJ.

YES

-D

[zircon]

Oof. Production is both one of the strongest and weakest parts of this at the same time. Really well-executed synths and percussion, but the whole thing has a very weird sort of compression/limiting on it that is causing a subtle, but present, pumping sound that is irritating to me. It's not as bad on speakers, of course, but on headphones it's pretty annoying. Some tweaking of the bass and kick frequencies and compression could really help there. Overall mastering could probably be a little less "hot" and more dynamic.. whole thing is sort of maxed out and it's apparent on the swells and crashes - particularly the beginning. Since this is a heavily electronic song, I feel that production is more important than normal, and that's why I'm sort of nitpicking here. This mix sort of reminds me of bLiNd's stuff.. were you influenced by him? If so, you might consider talking to him for tips on how to create a better overall mastering that's not quite so saturated. Finally, the strings/synth strings and piano that come in towards the end really don't sound that great. However, as I said, lots of aspects of the production ARE quite good, particularly on the synth end.

Structurally this mix has a lot of breakdowns for an upbeat dance song of not even 5 minutes. Also, there's no climax of any kind - I was expecting a final run after 4:00 or so, but nothing happened. Not even that much of a resolution. Come on! You have some seriously adrenaline-pumping elements here, and then you just let it ebb away in the breakdowns and the ending. Come up with something a little more fulfilling there! This brings me to the arrangement, which is obviously derived from Super Metroid, but it's really right on the border of having enough material. We do encourage the addition of original material to a mix, but injecting the source into a body of original work is not quite what we look for. I think if you just tweaked some of the original sections to draw more from the source tune and progression, that would really help.

This is an enjoyable trance remix. No doubt about it. But I think it has some minor technical problems, as well as some slightly more serious structural and arrangement problems, that should be addressed before I can pass it. Please resubmit.

NO

[zykO]

thick.

the bass is almost too thick at first but really, this is driving and powerful - at times the compression is knocking my brain cells loose. i dig its energy (fitting title)

you can do a lot more than that with the source material, buddy. and really where is the compositional dynamic? zircon nailed it; there is no discernable climax and the ending is very sputter-ful so i was close to NO-ing it but upon several more listens, i'm impressed by its general presentation... its got plenty of interesting stretches. i loved the breakdown with the flutes and when it picks up again, i'm loving the direction you're taking the piece but it feels and sounds too busy and ends on the reference to the super metroid title...

rad.

very good work here

YES

[DarkeSword]

I think the reverb in this piece is just right. Not too long of a decay, yet it conveys the feeling of expansiveness. Definitely a nice interpretation on the source material too. I mixed this piece myself, and I like what you did.

This piece is pretty solidly constructed, IMO. Zyko mentioned the stretches; you've got some nice evolving lines in here that really make this a good upbeat chillout piece. I say YES.

[analoq]

like the others i don't find the arrangement too liberal. let me break it down...

- right from the start (:16) we've got that recognizable background motif from brinstar.

- the remixer uses this on top of a long build section which includes some choir sounds (:30) that seem reminiscent.

- we get a break (1:16), then the build goes on further and we catch a glimpse of the 'B section' melody in the background (1:30).

- this all builds to the 'main' brinstar theme (2:20) and we are delighted with a driving new chord progression for it. (i agree the decay-modulated synth in this section gets a little cluttered when in full swing at around the 3 minute mark)

- the climax finishes off (3:08) and we get a cameo of the main metroid theme (3:20)

- finally we end with an interpretation of the 'B section' melody on piano. nice!

so, i think the arrangement is pretty cool.

but how about the sound?

the low end is too strong, there's too much delay/reverb and when you put a mix in that condition through a limiter things start to sound really unfocused.

i talked to Matt and as i figured: he mixed and mastered this mix on some PC/gaming speakers.

so, the sound is not ideal.

but is it bad enough to reject over? i set up a test to find out!

the test:

i made a playlist of 4 trance tunes from well known djs and put this remix as track number 5.

if i got to track 5 and i felt it sounded notably out of place or awkward compared to the first 4 tracks, then i'd reject it.

the results:

the transition to this remix wasn't bad at all.

Matt can't compare to a pro trance act but if a deejay snuck this into his set... i wouldn't do a double take.

well, at least not until the end when the beat drops out. but for a radio edit like this, that's not an issue.

and that's good enough for me.

yes