Donkey Kong Country 2 - Flight of the Zinger (Orchestral Arrangement)

[Pumpkin King]

I did this one in a few days after my arrangement of Forest Interlude. This is an orchestral arrangement of Flight of the Zinger from Donkey Kong Country 2. I love the music from that series and may do more arrangements in the future. Anyways, I'd like some feedback for this one.

Source tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLcWH1Z9VeQ

*UPDATED ARRANGEMENT:

AND:

http://soundcloud.com/pumpkin-king/dkc-flight-of-the-zinger

[jnWake]

This is quite cool. It isn't very different to the original arrangement-wise but the sounds used are nice.

Using the xylophone at the beggining was a good choice and the strings sound nice.

The drums are a bit weird in my opinion, they sound a bit off-beat, but I don't know if that's just me.

Anyway, I enjoyed it.

[Pumpkin King]

Thanks man!

I dunno, but the drums were in beat. Hmm... maybe the problem lies with the number of tracks. I had a lot going, and at points, things can be drowned out. But I kept it as is.

Thanks again for listening!

[Gario]

I liked the arrangement on this one quite a bit, here. Personally, I really liked how it never really loses the more mellow atmosphere throughout (unlike the source and most remixes, which explode with energy after a short time). Even at the climax, even though it's bigger, it doesn't open up to a high energy atmosphere, and I thought that was neat.

One common note that only affects a small portion of your strings (the parts that hold the faster melodic portions): there's too much swell for each of the attacks. If there's a way to automate the attack so the strings don't swell into each attack that would help the realism of the strings greatly. For the slow string portions it's not a problem.

The drums were a little on the weak side. That could be solved with a simple increase in volume, though - just be careful not to mess up any production in the process, if you do try to fix it.

I liked this otherwise, though. Nice work.

[Chris ~ Amaterasu]

I really enjoyed this one also, great job =) Retains a lot of the atmosphere well I think

[Pumpkin King]

Thanks Chris, I really appreciate it!

@Gario - Thanks man. I read this earlier and tried updating the strings a bit. In Garageband, I was already aware about the release time of the strings, and I did try to automate them with a smaller release time. So I did it again. Also, I updated the drums, too. Though the deep bass tones still drown parts out. But I want to keep it that way with my legato bass/cello strings, since in the source the low tones were pretty dominant. And then I edited the volumes of the strings which were loud in areas, along with changing part of the flute melody in the end, and making the xylophone a bit softer.

I reuploaded it to my soundcloud account since it's easier that way. When it's how I want it to be, I'll probably reupload it to youtube. So here's the song from soundcloud if anyone wants to hear the updated version:

http://soundcloud.com/pumpkin-king/dkc-flight-of-the-zinger

[htotheig]

I really like the drive of this song. Excellent cover!

[Pumpkin King]

I really like the drive of this song. Excellent cover!

Thanks! Much appreciated!

And btw, I made some slight changes and uploaded them both to youtube and soundcloud.