Fear Vehelits (Streets of Rage 2 - Alien Power)

[Nubblecakes]

To start, I'd just like to say hello. Just got my account approved and decided I would post my current work-in-progress remix.

I decided recently to remix Alien Power from Streets of Rage 2. I used to play this game with my brothers a lot when I was four years old. The stage where you fight vehilits, the floating alien head, always creeped me out. It wasn't the way it looked that got to me, it was the music (and the sounds the boss made).

Anyway, so far I have the basic structure of the song done. I still need to do loads of work on the intro, the transitions, and the outro. I'm going for a dark acid/psychedelic trance song. I really want it to flow nice and smooth. The current BPM is 140.

I use FL Studio and various VST plugins. I'm pretty inexperienced and I can't play any instruments. Bare with me if you use a musical term whose meaning I don't know. I'm completely open to all criticism so feel free to tear my song apart. Just, you know, keep in mind it's really early in development.

Original song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mskaRaVzMaQ

Listen to the track here:

http://soundcloud.com/nubblecakes/vehilits-the-conqueror-beta (Obsolete)

Update 1:

http://soundcloud.com/nubblecakes/fear-vehelits-beta-2

Changelog:

New percussion for the trance segments (break beat percussion remains the same).

Synths that play during the apex of the trance segments have been replaced with new ones. They rely less on gating effects and are a bit more "vanilla" in sound to make the remix sound more like the original. They still have some uniqueness to them, though.

Improved areas such as the intro, transitions, and outro to be more smooth; via effects such as sweeps, rises, falls, and classic reverse crashes. The song should flow a lot better. There is still work to be done in this department.

Better breakdown at the end of the break beat segment to give it more energy.

Added recording of Vehelits boss fight at the end for fun. Not sure if this is frowned upon though.

I changed the thread type to Mod Review in hopes that I might get some more feedback. I think it might have a chance of getting accepted as it is, but if not then oh well.

[Groboclown]

I really like the direction you've taken with this tune. You've captured the mood very well.

In my opinion, the song becomes repetitive at 1:35. Perhaps shrinking that, up to 1:45. Or, introducing a variation to the high pitch voice might work. By 3:19, though, I've got the family dancing.

[Nubblecakes]

Hi there Groboclown. Thanks a lot for the reply.

I agree, the song could definitely use some compacting. I've been hard at work redoing and replacing synths to make the song sound a little more like the original. I don't want the song's structure to be verbatim to the original, but similar to some degree. I didn't really do any rearranging but I don't think it really needs it.

I was actually considering trying to incorporate (in to my remix) the boss music that plays when you fight the spore spawn in Super Metroid. In my opinion, both the spore spawn and Vehelits have really similar features (big giant floating head, equally weird themes). The problem is the spore spawn music is so different and is pretty minimal as well. I'm not entirely sure it would work out. But it's still worth a shot, right?

Edit

Just uploaded the new mix. A lot has changed; hopefully all for the better:

Updated mix was added to original post.

Changed the song title too. The original title was a bit unimaginative in my opinion, and I think the new title better suits the "inspiration" to remix the original. Plus I misspelled Vehelits as Vehilits.

[ambient]

I like what you have done in the second part, but I think overall there are some production elements and repetitive patterns throughout the track that will keep your remix from being posted. I also think that it is too close to the original.

There is this guy Doni, who made an electro remix of this track:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5egaWexZ33w

I really like what he did that with the bass. But once again, his track is too close to original. And actually somewhat similar to your track, that I in fact first thought that this is a new version of that electro remix.

Your production is almost there, but what you really need to work on is arrangement - at least taking the source and making it your own. SOR soundtrack is already electronic/dancey, so it is hard to make a track that doesn't sound like a rip of the original without really changing it up.

You have some good ideas going here, but this needs more work before it's ready.

[Nubblecakes]

Ah, thank you for the reply. That helps a lot.

Looks like I've got some work to do. If you don't mind, could you elaborate on the "production elements" that I should improve?

[Rozovian]

Tear your song apart? i can do that.

mod rev:

Lead is really shrill. Drums are on autopilot, both the dance drums and the breakbeat ones. There's some embellishments when you switch from one to the other, but it's not enough imo.

I think the track's biggest problem is that it relies on too few ideas. From 0:14 to 2:03 you're basically just looping the same section, adding new layers every once in a while. At 1:43, you drop most of those elements and bring the track back to how it was before they came in... nothing's changed. That's basically a single looped section for a minute and a half. If the melody was more interesting, or the track had some changes to chords or something, it might stay more interesting, but as-is, it gets repetitive really quick. What's worse is that despite the change to rhythm in the breakbeat section, a lot of the same elements persist there as well, meaning that the whole track ends up feeling like a single loop with layers muted and unmuted. That's not a good arrangement.

The source is terrible, too. There's more that could be done with it, but that'll take some creative mangling of the melodies in it. Consider changing chords, scales, rhythms, lengths, stuff like that. Beginning the lead melody a quarter note later and forcing it to a different chord can change its feel a lot. just as an idea for what you can do with a melody.

Production is decent. Aside from the shrill lead and a lack of mid-range content, I don't expect production to be a problem should you submit this.

ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION

- Too conservative - sticks too close to the source - the aforementioned loop is conservative, and when there's little else, everything is conservative

STRUCTURE

- Not enough changes in sounds (eg. static texture, not dynamic enough)

- Too repetitive

I don't think this is a good source to work with. While sources short on material lend themselves well to being screwed with in all kinds of ways and still being easy to recognize, it actually requires some screwing with in order to keep them from being repetitive. That the source isn't pleasant to listen to doesn't really help your remix.

This wouldn't get posted.

btw, mod review is for when you're done with the mix and wonder if it's postable on ocr, not for when you just want more feedback. You can ask us for feedback anyway, we're not _that_ rich and famous.

[Nubblecakes]

Thanks for the honest, in-depth review. I figured I had a very long way to go with this but I thought I'd give mod review a shot to see if it even had a remote chance. I switched it back to Work in Progress, though I might scrap it since it's starting to bore me quite a bit. You were right about the source material.