djpretzel Posted July 11, 2005 Share Posted July 11, 2005 ReMix Name: Dreamstone Legend ReMix Link: Contact Information: Remixer Name: LeonHeart of the Flame Real Name: Jeremy Garren Email: jbgarren@mail.utexas.edu **Unable to locate userid # in forum profiles. ReMix Info: Name of game ReMixed: Chrono Trigger Name of song ReMixed: Battle with Magus Comments: While I originally set out to remix primarily Skies of Arcadia tunes, creativity often has a mind of its own, I find. I felt like writing something dark and ended up at Magus instead. I am very personally satisfied with this piece, which is more than I can say about most of the things I have composed. While attempting to remain fairly true to the original melody and feel of Battle with Magus, this remix is quite different from the original in at least one respect. This is written in a duple time signature rather than a triple, which effectively slows down the pace, and the melody has been modified accordingly. When writing this piece I thought quite specifically about the character tension between Frog(Glenn) and Magus. Magus' dark minor key theme is quite dominant for the first several minutes, but is eventually overtaken by a more heroic theme in the major key. This characteristic was present in the original battle theme, I have just tried to bring out the heroic side of the piece to be more than just a brief interlude. In my original cut of this remix, the climax of the heroic theme successfully ended the piece. However, I felt that Magus would not be one not easily or obviously silenced, so in the words of a hobbit who shall remain nameless - there was room for a little more. Thank you for your time, Jeremy Garren LeonHeart of the Flame Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Ascher-Weiss Posted July 16, 2005 Share Posted July 16, 2005 http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Battle with Magus" (ct-2-24.spc) There's definitely alot to be proud of here! There are some sections where the melody is at the front and everything else is supporting it. It's being doubled by a quiet string and the bass line is right in there holding everything in place. [1:15 - 1:30 is a good example]. In other sections, things are crowded and there is little focus. At 1:30 and 2:17, there are many moving parts and the melody itself isn't given much power. Since you effectively ADD 2 eighth notes to the end of each measure, the melody will have a tendency to drag and you had the right idea to compensate by having the other parts be more active but when this happens you need to do more to draw attention to the melody. Doubling it an octave above or below can help.... or maybe doulbing it in another instrument that plays the same notes but doesn't hold them, instead it stutters them [while the melody plays B, A the other instrument would be playing: B, B, B, B, A, A, A, A etc....] This problem occurs in several sections of the song. At 3:05 you did a great job of arranging the part of the source with the screams of agony. You had to compensate for the exciting rhythms of the original and what the flute plays sounds great though the flute itself could have been louder. This is a VERY long mix at 6:34 and it's tough to keep something that long from growing dull after a while. There are parts like 3:25 where not much is happening and nothing up to that point has convinced me that that lack of action will be worth sitting through. The arrangement ideas at 5:49 could be used in other parts of the piece to strengthen it. The mixing is a bit uneven there so the drums should have been quiter. Here are some possible solutions The first 43 seconds are acceptable as a way to introduce the theme. Everything from 0:43 until 1:15 also works well to set the back drop for the melody's entrance. The first time through the melody is fine. The second time when you add the additional part, layer the melody either with stuttering or an octave above/below. It would also serve you during this section to occasionally have either the bass or drums drop out for a bar or two to remind us of how important they are. The little guitar interlude sounds good but you should then skip ahead to 2:13 bypassing the orchestra hit section. Then when you bring the melody back, do more to make it stand apart from the previous section by using things like the drums at 2:42. The way you treated the next part of the melody was fine though I have a minor qualm [at 2:03 the bass note should have switched to a B]. Then when you do the "turn-around" from the source, highlight the part you wrote for the flute by doulbing it or making it louder and staccato. You've also earned a right to repeat that turn-around a few more times since it sounds really good. At this point you should skip ahead to the ideas at 5:50 but you can apply them to as you call it "the herioc part of the theme". Have things build on that feel and then you can end it.... there's no rule that says a ReMix has to be over six minutes and this would benefit from being a lot shorter. Okay.... so It's easy to see that these are just some possibilities. I'm trying to open up options for you. Right now the song drags and a lot of the sections are cluttered... not as a result of having too much going on, but of not giving any specific element center stage which causes confusion. I like the way you approached this by giving a plot to your ReMix that relates to the game. It definitely comes through. n0 (Resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harmony Posted July 21, 2005 Share Posted July 21, 2005 The muddy strings and clipping of the intro are not a good way to start things off. However once some percussive highs kick in at 0:45, I find myself enjoying many sections of the rest of the track. The switch to 4/4 orchestral rock gives the Magus Battle theme an enjoyable drive but it’s nothing too expansive in terms of arrangement. Not a bad arrangement overall though, even if a little long-winded. I would reevaluate how important 5:12-6:32 is to your intentions Jeremy. It seems excessive and doesn’t really add any interest to the mix besides the appearance of the piano as a key player, which could be achieved earlier. The fuller sections are nicely done and seem to be well balanced, if a little distant because of the reverb which I think could be slightly toned down in those sections. The sparse sections, which are compositionally great to have, unfortunately highlight the low quality of the samples and/or the mechanical sequencing (2:07-2:16, 5:13-5:42). The bass solo later on is a major offender in this area. The section from 3:25-4:02 is relatively well done though and although it’s simple I particularly enjoy it. Aside from the sample quality, which with good sequencing would be passable, there are some consistent sound quality issues here that make this difficult to pass. The low encoding hurts so try for a VBR encoding next time. Taking a look at the mix’s waveform, it’s completely flat for most of the mix; the peaks are hacked off. This means you either mixed everything very loud or compressed (limited) heavily. Either problem isn’t necessarily a bad thing but waveforms like this can point to serious clipping of your precious audio, even if it’s not audible. In this case however it is very audible, especially in the less cluttered sections like the intro or 2:02-2:16. Can’t forget the clipstravaganza at 3:04. Be sure to keep a watchful eye on those levels in the future Jeremy. A fun mix for the most part but there’s still work to be done. NO -------------------------------------------- LT Edit: After the decision was released, Harmony gave some extra comments in the mix's WIP thread that I thought would be useful to LeonHeart if he considered a resub. Since the WIP thread will eventually be pruned, I've pasted Harmony's additional comments from 7/27: I genuinely enjoyed most of your mix but sections like 0:00-0:43, 2:02-2:16, 5:15-5:24 are pretty poor. Either the sequencing is very mechanical or the samples are too exposed. By mechanical I mean that every note is perfectly in tempo, the note velocities are very similar to each other and the lengths of the notes are very similar to each other. Computer precision is great for some things but not for music of this type. To make a piece sound more natural you have to vary these factors keeping in mind the way that a human would vary them. Listen to your bass solo and then go find a CD with a real bass solo in it. C’mon now. The piano, bass, drums and some strings suffer from this in your mix. Look for a ‘humanize’ function in your mixing program that might help you with this. Otherwise, if you’re recording parts live from a keyboard don’t quantize 100% or you’ll loose some of that good natural feel. If you’re sequencing with only a mouse, you might try not turning your snap-to-grid feature on in the piano roll or at least editing some of the notes with this feature off. Some main samples are also pretty sub par. The bass solo sounds like SoundBlaster default, the orch hits are weak, the solo strings are only ok and the guitar solo isn’t too amazing either. When these elements are combined I absolutely love the sound but alone (exposed) they just don’t work. You might want to hit Hammersound.net and get some new soundfonts (for free) or SampleArena for new samples (yep, for free). Those are my favorites but the ReMixing forum is a great source to find lots of links to other good sounds (for free). The drums are cool. Clipping. If this was the best mix in the world I couldn’t pass this because it clips left and right. Clipping is when your volume levels go above a certain threshold and the wave is truncated (cut off) usually resulting in a buzzy sound rather than whatever sound was supposed to be there. When judging this I took the time to load your mix into CoolEdit to get a detailed look at your waveform. Looking closely, instead of many of the waves being shaped like smooth curves, they are hacked off at the top and are completely flat. That means some of the audio is clipped. Of course you don’t really have to go through all of that to see it because the clipping is pretty obvious (3:04 for example). To prevent this, watch the volume levels meter in your mixing program during playback. Usually if this meter goes to red then this indicates clipping (or very near to it). Some meters have a section beyond the red that gets highlighted if clipping actually occurs. Either way, don’t let this happen. Turn the master volume level down. If you are using a compressor make sure the compression ratio isn’t too high. If you are boosting the overall volume levels of the final mix then make sure to only ‘normalize’ it so that you don’t get clipping from that. Yep, that’s all’s I got for now. You can PM me if you have any specific questions. Hopefully you’re not discouraged Jeremy. This mix is good stuff but as with anything, there’s room for improvement. EDIT: Apparently SampleArena is temporarily down so try SynthZone. They've got a good list of sample/soundfont/synth links to sift through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted July 25, 2005 Share Posted July 25, 2005 Darangen's made me appreciate the Magus theme a bit more. I wasn't even very familiar with it until "Atonement". I liked the power coming in at :45 here, though the drums are kind of plain. The atmosphere is noticeably clippy and muddy. No offense Jeremy, but did you bother to listen to this on headphones and hear how crunchy and distorted this got during some of the louder sections. And I really hate that awful faux-electric guitar sample. Those stabs at 2:07 were incredibly tacky as well. I liked the sections where you had several elements going on at once. It was just when you exposed your samples at various times that I noticeably cringed. The way this is arranged, it seems to me that your samples are supposed to sound realisitic and performed by a human being, and they definitely don't. The bassline at 5:12 was another obvious example of that. Too much mechanical sounding instrumentation, like Harmony pointed out. Indeed, do a VBR encoding as well and don't (sorry, again) absolutely fuck up the compression which will ruin an otherwise solid track. Just editing radio shows of mine, I've seen this problem before trying to boost levels and using hard limiting and here it's ridiculous. Cry help at the ReMixing and WIP forums for help and fast. This one needs a substantial amount of work, but you have some good ideas, and I hope you're dedicated enough to bring this one up to stuff. Promising stuff, but desperately in need of work to be your sophomore mix. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 the instruments immediately sound cheap. the violin cuts out too fast, that high note sounds terrible. You messed with the melody in a way that doesnt greatly change the feel of it, but makes it slightly more akward. bad. The guitar sounds terrible, the orchestral hits sound terrible. frankly i think the decision to convert the track to 4/4 is a bad one. loses it's momentum. Sorry if i sound overly negative but there's lots of ugly here that needs to be fixed. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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