djpretzel Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 http://www.soundclick.com/bands/3/theprophetofmephisto_music.htm The name of the song is 'Drowning in a Pool of Infinity'. Please leave the link to my soundclick on the submission feedback thingie whatchacallit. It's a remix of Aeris's theme from FF7, rock style with some acoustic breakdown at the end. It's the first song on the list. Remixers - The Prophet of Mephisto and Level 99 Remix Team real name - Brad Burr and Stevo Bortz. Stevo sent me this song about a month and a half ago. he had recorded the electric guitar part and asked me to do some 'extra stuff' with it. Originally all we were going to do was some drums and bass guitar - however, as we talked about it more, I added in strings, then he recorded an acoustic section to the end. I did the djembe, strings, and lazysnake electric piano. The vocals were a late addition, but I feel they really work. This whole piece flowed so easily - we had the main ideas down in about a week and a half, and the final mastering took about a week of sending it back and forth between us. I feel this is the culmination of our efforts on this piece. stevo wanted me to say that he thinks this is REALLY AWESOME zomg...and he was kidding on vgmix. werd. THE PROPHET Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 319 "Aeris' Theme" Opening up, the percussion is really flat. The patterns aren't bad, but they don’t mesh well with the guitar lead to me. Some fakey-sounding strings arrived at :35. Very thin and sparse sound on those. Doesn't really make sense that the strings are being overpowered by the bassline. Just sounds like the volume on the strings was turned down as opposed to a human player playing softly; I’d argue that you should punch that supporting bit up. Rock style stuff at 1:58. The percussion still doesn't sit well in the track at all. It’s louder than your guitar lead and the sound disparity on everything doesn't help; the drums sound clean while the guitar's a bit muffled and muted. All just strange choices in combination. Some MIDI-thingamabob string instrument joined in from 2:21-2:48. That’s just gotta go. It’s so mechanically programmed and GM-ish, it just cheapens the whole thing. At 2:48, it’s back into the chorus, and the arrangement feels like it’s not going anywhere interesting after all this time. You gotta cut the fat. I appreciate the effort given to the supporting instrumentation, but the arrangement is just too straightforward most of the time. Doesn't help that MENBAH! already made this style of mix and did a better job of it. Some people bitch about comparisons, but the fact of the matter is that this idea has essentially been tread before. That being said, this isn't passable even if FF7 'Prayer' didn't exist. Finally something new at 3:32. You could just start there and fashion a more creative arrangement based off this idea. Some of the string chord in the background are clashing with the guitar plucks though. Anyway, the melody comes in again at 4:11, this time on a Casio-like keyboard with some effects. Sounds more gentle and unique than the guitar arrangement. The vocals at 4:39 are very untrained, sound exposed, and the delay/echo effect on them makes them sound worse as they layer together poorly and the timing is slightly off. Some reverb on ‘em at 5:11 was good but it was way too late, so perhaps use it earlier. Suggestions would be that the melodic arrangement needs to be creative and interpretive, not cover-ish, get the percussion work to sit well in the track, get better samples and get them sounding humanized, and tighten up the whole performance. But honestly, I’d just say move onto the next project and chock this one up as experience as you strive to improve. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted September 7, 2005 Share Posted September 7, 2005 One thing that struck out at me first was the lack of overall production quality. While I'm the last person to expect spectacular mastering and engineering, I think it's nonetheless an important aspect of a song and needs to be considered with everything else. The whole mix sounds sort of dull, with all the parts sort of muddied together, the percussion being 'far back' and bland except for the hats. The drum sequencing itself isn't bad (though some of the patterns don't seem to fit the style you're going for), but the samples and production need work. I suggest reading in the remixing forum for more help on that subject, or even talk to Compyfox to try to get a brighter and more 'alive' mix than what you have now. The string samples have got to go. The marcato ones especially are just BAD. Please find something else or remove them entirely, they actually detract from the mood you were going for. The recording of the guitars seemed better in comparison to this other stuff, but a little reverb to make them less dry would have been nice. They also felt out of sync at times with the percussion, and the sometimes odd panning of the different strums and layers was disorienting. The lack of reverb/delay or any other kind of spatial processing was apparent especially in the parts with ethnic percussion, and towards the end with the sparse vocals (where everything seemed to be pretty out of sync). Arrangement-wise this isn't BAD, but it needs a lot of work. The structure doesn't seem to actually go anywhere - it's just playing the theme back, more or less, with few creative changes and not much of an unique interpretation factor. It's 5+ minute length made the entire thing feel dragged out, like only a few minutes of ideas were being stretched to fit. This also led to some sparseness throughout the mix as well at different times, although that might also have been due to the relatively minimal instrumentation. You can have a relaxing acoustic mix but still do more "stuff" with just a few instruments. I'd say this needs considerable work all over, as Larry said. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The wingless Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Zirks and Ohjee pretty much covered it all. From the first note to the last, this song really sounds like A.) a dood with a real guitar and B.) another dood with maybe Fruityloops. Sounds are cluttered and muddy. Yet even those things could be forgiven, were this not a carbon cover of a frighteningly popular song. The more popular the song, the more you have to deviate from the norm. I fear that simply is not done here. The latter "song" is nice, aside from some clashing harmonies with the vocals. If you choose to stick this one through, I'd reforge the song more like the latter half, and do away with the former. But still, the whole things needs work. :/ NO -no note-for-note cover -better production ~by which I mean, more attention to arrangement and detail -cleaner, tighter sound -add *some* variation. I don't care what. Dynamics, phrasing, notation. Throw me a bone here. p.s. I chose Tifa cuz she had huge onez. lolz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analoq Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 sorry dude, maybe a few years ago this could be on OCR. but not these days. we need more intepretation than this. i like the general idea of the sound, i can hear what you guys were going for and it's a good idea (including the ending instrumentation). but that needs to be tightened up a bit, the guitar gets grating at times.. electric guitars have the most astounding array of tones, make use of a variety of them, don't stick to one sound! no Please leave the link to my soundclick on the submission feedback thingie whatchacallit. ask and ye shall receive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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