djpretzel Posted July 11, 2005 Share Posted July 11, 2005 LT Edit - Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=42531 hello! I'd prefer you to use the soundclick site so i can track the number of downloads. Song Name - Akoustical Dreaming Remixer Name - The Prophet of Mephisto Real Name - Brad Burr Website - www.soundclick.com/theprophetofmephisto Song Remixed - Radical Dreamers Theme from Chrono Cross by Yasunori Mitsuda I'm a music major at Houghton College in NY. I play saxophones. Been working on this in pieces for quite a long time. It's been through four or five major revisions. You originally reviewd the old version over a year or two ago, and after immense amounts of help from some good friends (props to my college people, PriZm, and Geoffery Taucer) I finally came to a place where I am happy with this song for now. So, let's see what you think of it. It's all free soundfonts (KVR-Audio for the rhodes and various main instruments, natural studios for the bass, piano, ep, and drums, and DarkeSword's site for the rest) and just has been done in Fruity. I hope you enjoy it, i really enjoyed working on this. I start with some strings, leading into some flowing piano lines. i added the rhodes here because i love rhodes (if it could cook, i'd marry the stupid thing) and then go into the bulk of the piece. lots of new harmonies, lots of things fixed from the last time this got bumped out. most everything that i could, i fixed. then down to an ending similar to what was there before, just cleaned up a bit. i've put a lot of work into this. like i said, i hope you enjoy it, because i really have loved working on this. it took me a while, but i finally finished it. have a good day. THE PROPHET Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 Track starts off with no power. The note movements all fudge around; there was a gratuitous use of constant attacks rather than having virtual bow movement be responsible for the notes changing. There's no sense of anything being grounded here; the intro's composition is just unfocused and wallowing in reverb. Better stuff moving over into the piano, though the fakey synth bass at 1:04 was weak. "Radical Dreamers" melody came in at 1:14, and it's not interpretive enough. The strings joining on support were attempted to be used with subtlety, but still sounded exposed and too synthetic. FINALLY some additive ideas with the support instrumentation at 2:10, though the soundfield became pretty cluttered. Things could use more panning and separation here. Then some actual rearrangement of the source material at 3:01, though as things faded down around 3:05-3:14, we got the weak synth bass making another cameo appearance. The minimal approach after 3:14 with pads, light vox and hand drums was alright, but really doesn't take the source in a substantially interpretive direction, just one where motifs from "Radical Dreamers" are used in a very liberal last section. Work on humanizing some of the instrumentation more, pan and separate some of the sounds for a more enveloping atmosphere, and scrap the overly conservative stuff and get some real rearrangement ideas. "Mostly cover" + "pretty liberal section" has been shown by precedent not to be taken, so I'm not gonna take it now. On the plus side though, this was still an interesting listen and your skills have improved. Glad to see your work headed in the right direction, Brad. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Ascher-Weiss Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 Lots of close-knit harmonies in the strings at the beginning [major and minor 2cnds]. That's a bad idea with the type of harsh string sounds that you're using. Also from the sound of those strings, I'd say they're not meant to be moving around so much. I love the piano stuff that follows. When you introduce the melody a few issues arise. You should pan the electric and acoustic guitars far away from each other. Also, things feel cloudy on occasion in that area because your F# chord is bleeding into you G chord thanks to reverb. You can make this work while still keeping the reverb, just make sure that right before the G chord is going to come in that no instruments are playing a Bb [or A sharp in this key]... they can play F#, C# or E and it will still feel like an F# chord. That will solve a lot of problems in that section. I guess the strings here are synthetic, but I don't mind and I like the note choices you made using 9ths, and 13ths while for the most part keeping the roots out of your string chords. Good move! In the next section, you have a similar situation with your oboe and bassoon in that they should be panned apart. It's not as big of a problem here because they're in different registers, but it would still be a good idea to separate them. At 2:21 the bassoon plays a D# and I'm almost 100% positive that was supposed to be a D being that it was played over a simple B minor chord. I like what the high string is doing during this part but you should get rid of it, either that or have it panned away from the oboe on the same side with the bassoon, more care should be taken to the guitar part here to make sure that it's playing notes that support the bassoon oboe stuff rather than interfere. I say this because the teamwork between the oboe and bassoon is beautiful and you should let it shine. The rhodes + bass + drums thing after the oboe bassoon part is excellent. This opens up into some subtle ambient textures with hand percussion. I have no objections to any of this. As for the issue of interpretation, it's true that you hardly alter the source melody, and your guitar part is very similar to that of the original as well, however you do add a lot of interesting things. The easiest way for you to get some more interpretation here would be to just mess around with the phrasing of the melody. Have it wait a couple extra beats before one part of the phrase and then have another fragment of the melody come in a beat or two early. If you just mix up the phrasing and occasionally have your guitar part play some more syncopated rhythms [using sixteenth or thirty-second notes depending on your BPM] then this should be fine in that area. I know you've already been asked to resubmit this once, but you're SOOOOO close this time and I really like most of what's hear. I want to see you take it the rest of the way. n0 (PLEASE RESUBMIT... JUST ONE MORE TIME!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The wingless Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 Yikes! I know I've said I would never use my Caesar thumb to down a mix purely on samples. But double yikes. When you've got a string sample like that, used with such incredible reverb and clashing notation, it's hard to ignore. Hard to ignore like 50-cent with his pants down at a debutante catillion yelling, "omg, it's Conrad Birdie!". Next on the grrr docket is the flute. When you have an wind instrument, two natural phenomina occur. One, the player takes a breath. Two, the instrument naturally decrescendos. Niether of these natural phenomina occur, thus, making your flute quite unnatural (latin: against nature). The point is this: when you use synthetic instruments, particularly poor faximile [sic] instruments, you have to work doubly hard to suspend disbelief and make those samples sound great. Right now, the treatment of the samples (for emphasis: NOT THE SAMPLES THEMSELVES!) is this biggest con of this piece. NO -Cut the reverb down by one billion -Understand what makes an instrument satisfying to listen to: natural growths and drops in volume. Phrasing. Ornamentation. -Humanize this robot-orgy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 Everything is buried in reverb in this piece. It's hard to differentiate anything (omg calculus?). Strings sound really fake and lo-fi, and like Shnab mentioned, harmonies are wonky (meaning your thick harmonies don't sound good; it's largely due to the sample you're using). Drums sound far away in this mix; the balance overall here is really terrible. Everything besides the percussion is right in my face. The cello sample sounds like it's stretched really thin too. There are production issues all over this song. It's muddy, mechanical, and unbalanced. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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