Super Zelda Kong 8(Collab Remix)

[mirev]

JourneyJay Presents:

"Super Zelda Kong 8"

----WORK IN PROGRESS----

Comprising Portions of:

1. Final Fantasy 8- "The Man With The Machine Gun"

2. Super Mario Brothers(Bros.)- "Overworld"

3. Donkey Kong Country- "Theme"

4. The Legend of Zelda: "Song of Storms"

http://tindeck.com/listen/bhqo

Critical Judgment Requested...I'm in the learning process.

NEW VERSION: http://soundcloud.com/journeyjay/super-zelda-kong-8 (March 21st, 2012)

FINAL: http://soundcloud.com/journeyjay/super-zelda-kong-8-special (3/27/2012)

[Chimpazilla]

Interesting! I'm gonna briefly hit the highlights here. Others can expand on it.

1. Those themes go together surprisingly well. Nicely woven together.

2. Production is not too bad so far.

3. For OCR you will need to remix just one game, primarily or at least dominantly. Too many various sources here.

4. Melodies need to change up. Most are just established and looped verbatim. Song of storms plays simply and repetitively throughout. Mario overworld too... and it needs some notes altered to fit in, a few of the Mario harmonies don't fit into this mix. My favorite loop is DK, it would make a great background for something else over it. Suggestion: once you establish a melody, let the next few repetitions of it be different in some way, then different again. Let some originality branch out from the basic melodies.

5. Pace is plodding. Drums are auto-pilot and repetitive. Needs much, much more variation.

6. Needs some solos and original material playing over looped stuff.

Sounds like you are on the right track but more work to do. Keep at it, I hear potential here.

[Darangen]

The concept is pretty good here, but after the third theme gets thrown in with the rest it starts getting way too muddy and difficult to follow. You could theoretically have 50 different games in one ReMix, but you'd need to choose one as your main source, as chimpazilla said.

This is essentially a medley of different sources from different games, and those are usually pretty difficult to pull off well enough. I like the idea of using the Song of Storms from Zelda OoT as the backing track and then having the other sources blend together with it, but just not all at the same time. I'm very familiar with all the sources and I still had a hard time being able to make sense of it.

A better approach would be to have them come in one at a time and be replaced by the next with a good transition to bring the listener from one tune to the next.

The wall you're going to run into is the Judges Panel. They're going to listen to it and say "well, that was a cool idea there but I wish they would've expanded more on it." It's a common problem with medleys unless you have a super long song that has time to really flesh out every idea and interweave them really well.

So I guess my advice would be pick one of your ideas and run with it, expand on it, and really get creative with it.

[mirev]

Updated Version:

http://soundcloud.com/journeyjay/super-zelda-kong-8

I did a lot of EQ on this to clear up the muddiness.

[mirev]

http://soundcloud.com/journeyjay/super-zelda-kong-8-special

FINAL

[mirev]

http://snd.sc/GXR2uO

Mod Review

[Rozovian]

Going into this, I expected this to be quite medley-itic.

0:00 sos

0:42 add smw

1:04 add... something

1:47 add something else

2:08 add dkc

Oh man this is long. Overcompressed, repetitive, slow, loud beat, loop-y parts. I don't remember tmwtmg from any remixes and don't recall the original either. In this case it doesn't matter, this is still an easy NO.

2:51 just sos, dkc, smw

3:12 just dkc and smw

3:35 add sos

And then it just ends. Sure, the drums drop out but it still just ends. Too long, not interesting enough. It's not as much of a medley as I expected, the different sources are layered on top of each other instead of stacked in a row, but quantity is a poor substitute for quality.

There's some more elaborate writing in the background, but it's not brought out well enough in the mix. Things bleed all over each other, use levels, eq, and reverb to put different instruments in different places in the mix so they're all clear and don't get in each others' way. That's especially important in layered tracks like this.

Its also too long, which is fine if it'd be more varied, but it's the same slow beat through it all, the same take on Song of Storms through most of it, meaning it's the same chords (or chord) through it all, the same slow takes on the SMW Overworld and the DKC theme throughout... It's the same throughout.

ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION

- Too conservative - sticks too close to the source

PRODUCTION

- Too loud

- Overcompressed (pumping/no dynamics)

- Mixing is muddy (eg. too many sounds in the same range)

STRUCTURE

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

- Pace too plodding

- Too repetitive

- Abrupt ending

I'd add "too long" to the list, but it's not part of the checklist, and it's not the length, it's the tiring overcompression, repetition, pace, and lack of change that's the actual problem... tho a 4 minute track needs more than 40 seconds of ideas.

Cool idea to layer stuff like this, but there's a host of problems with this mix. You could try again with a shorter arrangement and focus on quality over quantity, get the mixing clean and clear, keep the arrangement interesting. Fitting these sources together shows you've got ears for stuff like this. Do it better.