*NO* Doom 'Industrial Strength'

[djpretzel]

Contact Info

ReMixer Name: Joker

Real Name: David L. Puga

Email: Davejkr@prodigy.net

ReMix Info

Remix name: Industrial Strength

Game: DooM

Song ReMixed: e1M2: The Imp's Song

Comments:

Wassup guys. I made this remix for "The Dark Side Of Phobos" DooM remix project. I decided on doing this one because I really liked the feel of the original. Very John Carpenter-esque. When I began remixing it I knew the song only as the Nuclear Plant, so I wanted to keep an industrial feel. Hence why there's dirty synths & pipes & whatnot & so on. Seeing as the bass was really what drove the original, I wanted to keep it in the forefront. I also wanted it to be eerie & brooding. Have dissonant resonating synths. And I just kept adding stuff I thought was appropriate. The End

[Liontamer]

http://www.doom2.net/~doomdepot/music/doom%201%20&%202%20midis.zip - "E1M2 - Nuclear Plant"

Decent intro. Good job even making that ambiance a rearrangement of the original. The vox was a bit too artificial sounding, as well as the strings. Nice atmosphere though. The drums seemed a bit too loud, but s'alright.

Some electronic stuff kicked in at :50. A little cluttered and drowning out the melodic lead, but the production is good for the most part. Just bring that lead out. The melodies here really aren't very melodic at all throughout the whole piece. Just seems like randomly phrased stuff the whole way through that doesn't sound much like the source tune to me at all. And prior to judging this, I looped the source tune for hours to get very familiar with it. I obviously hear how you changed the rhythms up, but beyond 1:59 it started going far off the beaten path as far as I could hear. For anyone who complained that some of the material was too liberal, I'd say this was a good example.

Make the melody more overt here. That means not obscuring it with all of the other synths and effects in play, making the arranged melody sound more easily identifiable with the source material, and making the arranged melody sound more melodic in general. Don't get me wrong, David, on the whole this sounds good, but it doesn't sound at all like the theme you tackled. I'm certainly willing to relisten if anyone else strongly disagrees.

NO (resubmit)

[Sam Ascher-Weiss]

I don't think this was too liberal. The original was basically just an F sharp blues and you preserved that aspect of the form. I hear no melody [other than the very soft instruments playing minor and major thirds] in the original, so I don't see how you could have overly obscured something that doesn't exist. Anyway, interpretation was not an issue for me.

The bass-less section from 2:02 till 2:17 had the type of moderation that a lot of this piece is lacking. Sometimes the choir holds a low F sharp for a long time and at a high volume to the point where it starts to PULL the rest of the layers down. Similarly the high pitched portamento sound draws attention away from some of the lovely textures you've spawned. This is superbly evidenced at 3:38 when it goes on subatical.

All of the real movement in this remix happens in the high register and drums. The bass is moving as well, but more than "moving" it's really just playing hopscoth between E and F sharp most of the time. There is a slightly audible left-panned instrument that's getting some action in the middle register, but it doesn't have much presence. If the bass were to do some more staccato work, that would help, as would having more prominent patterns in the middle register instead of so many sustained instruments like the choir and strings. More 2:02-ish sections wouldn't hurt either. One thing you totally NAILED was the atmosphere. Work on that layering and you'll be in the clear. A lot of this is very fun to listen to!

n0 (Resubmit)

[Liontamer]

I don't think this was too liberal. The original was basically just an F sharp blues and you preserved that aspect of the form. I hear no melody [other than the very soft instruments playing minor and major thirds] in the original, so I don't see how you could have overly obscured something that doesn't exist. Anyway, interpretation was not an issue for me.

It may be pretty basic but it kicks in at :27 of the MIDI. And there you have it.

[Sam Ascher-Weiss]

It may be pretty basic but it kicks in at :27 of the MIDI. And there you have it.

I'd call that a bassline rather than a melody, and it is has been perfectly preserved by the "hopscotch" route/7th pattern in the ReMix. The phrasing has been altered but the notes are there consistently from beginning to end while the rhythms have been taken up by other instruments playing different notes. Still doesn't seem too liberal to me.

[Liontamer]

It may be pretty basic but it kicks in at :27 of the MIDI. And there you have it.

I'd call that a bassline rather than a melody, and it is has been perfectly preserved by the "hopscotch" route/7th pattern in the ReMix. The phrasing has been altered but the notes are there consistently from beginning to end while the rhythms have been taken up by other instruments playing different notes. Still doesn't seem too liberal to me.

Sweet, thanks for the new perspective. Yeah, I hear the melody from the MIDI used as the bassline of the mix here most of the way through. The biggest aspect of the source arrangement basically consists of the bassline of this mix, which is confined way in the back. The portamento melody of the mix sounds too liberal/original compared to the source and is the focus of the track rather than the arrangement of the source. And there you have it. (Gonna keep saying that.)

[Harmony]

I love this track. From the droning choir, to that crazy left-panned synth to the high-pitched lead synths, this mix has a solid atmospheric foundation. During the home-stretch from 3:02-3:40 the high synths start to get a little repetitive as they are progressively more exposed, but it’s not that big of a problem. The intro sets up the percussive groove that drives this mix through all 4 min. It’s repetitive but in this context that’s not a problem.

I agree with Larry though that the source is extremely difficult to pick out. I’m very familiar with the source tune and on DSoP I was unable to recognize the original without reading the album art. With an original that’s as bassline-dominant as this, that bassline has to be kept more intact than what has been done in order to achieve some level of familiarity with the listeners. In this case, it’s not enough to keep the chord progression (which is actually altered in plenty of spots) and the notes without also keeping a good portion of the melodic phrasing as well.

Again, this is a great track with solid production and few sound quality problems to speak of. It just needs to relate more efficiently to the source.

NO

[GrayLightning]

The source is difficult to pick out because he took the main motif of the original and made it so submerged. Considering what little material he had to work with in the original, I'm willing to let that slide. Not to mention as someone who likes to push the arrangement envelope with liberal arrangements, who am I to criticize too much.

Overall I thought it was certainly an above average arrangement with several very interesting moments. Your percussive accents I didn't think worked though. They sounded limp. I'd like to see more processing on that, as well as different patterns.

I'd like to see this polished a little more with some more processing on the synths and pads, that production aspect came off rather dull. But your synths and samples are certainly nice.

I'm tempted to go YES, but I'd like some minor tweaking on all aspects. Borderline NO.