OCR01429 - *YES* Street Fighter Alpha 2 'Dan's Ice Cream Truck'

[djpretzel]

Violin/fiddle solo is the shit. Piano seemed a bit loud to me? - djp

ignore the last email... this one actually has a link to the mp3

remixer names - Joshua Morse and po!

http://www.joshuamorse.com/

http://www.wushuplaya.com/

Street Fighter Alpha 2 - Dan stage

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[Vig]

i agree the piano is a bit loud.

aside from that, JM is one of the only people in the community who can sequence jazz/funk/r&b comping well. The voicings he chooses are rich and textured. He is rhythmically interesting but unimposing. These are two qualities that will definately put you on the Rhodes to a solid rhythm section (har.) I've been consistently impressed by his recent material.

my only other gripe is that the ending is weak.

I'll give it a YES regardless, but lets ask josh if he'd be willing to drop the piano a decibel or two. shouldnt be too big of a deal.

[The Orichalcon]

Source: http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/snes/sfa2dan.mid - Dan

First up, piano is a little loud. Not that it really matters in this case. It's played out well, it's the kind of loud you want. This is pretty cool, excellent groove going (OMG GRUUV BIAS!!1)

The fiddle is definitely the stuff. Nice choice of instrumentation. I'm not really familiar with this style of mix. Bass, beat, rhodes, fiddle and piano. There's nothing else in there, but it all fits together nicely. The rhodes sound nice. and the fiddle works well as the lead. Everything is balanced, no production issues.

The arrangement is clever, a good jump from the upbeat source to a funky groove like this. Not much else to say really. This just works, it's fun to listen to, has all the right stuff.

YES

Edit: Piano fixed, no issues now. Great mix guys.

[GrayLightning]

I contacted josh about the piano volume issues. A new version may be on the way soon. Status on hold.

Edit: Vote is resumed with new tweaked version.

[Liontamer]

Street Fighter Alpha 2 OST - "Dan Stage"

The intro was thin and I didn't like the looped nature of it. Some nice Rhodes chords came in at :18 for a smooth flavor, though they sounded a little buzzy. The "Dan Stage" melody came in at :36, and I'll admit I didn't care for how mechanical the piano sounded on its own. The doubling of the piano with the string/pluck sounds from :54-1:10 did a good job of masking that and providing a little more depth. The chorus at 1:11 was nice, with Posu then taking the foreground, and seguing into the solo at 1:30, which I thought was really stylish even before I saw djp's comment up top about it. The beats felt a little too loud compared to the piano/violin combo.

Another iteration of the chorus at 1:48 before going to Josh's solo at 2:06. The writing was good, but there wasn't enough realism in the sound of the performance. Most of the note-to-note movement was very robotic-sounding especially with such fast playing, so while stylish it certainly wasn't smooth. 2:25 has some nice rearrangement going on before another verse of the source tune at 2:42. I wish there was some more overt variation from one iteration of the melody to the next, but the arrangement was pretty good and was able to carry the track fairly well.

3:19 focused on the Rhodes while gradually working toward the end of the track with a steady groove. Would have liked for some more ideas to be thrown on top of the groove for maybe 20-30 seconds before going for the fadeout, just to keep that beat from dragging too long, or otherwise go for a more truncated ending. Track abruptly cuts out at 4:13 during what would have been the last few seconds of the fadeout. Needs to be fixed before it's posted.

The loops here run pretty long and barely deviate from their patterns, but the overall flow of the track is good the whole way through. Without disturbing the pacing or energy of the track, I still think more could have been done with the beats/foundation of the track. But after several full listens, I feel it's getting the job done. Nothing astonishing on that level, but capable nonetheless, and luckily compensated for by the foreground material. The genre adaptation and creative solos are well-done here, so while I have some reservations on it, I'm willing to go with the borderline YES.

[Harmony]

Nice. I’m a becoming a huge Regina Carter fan but sadly her work and that of other jazz violinists often goes underappreciated, even in the jazz community. It’s always a rare pleasure to hear a good jazz violin performance. Great work po! .

The rest of the instruments are nice as well. Very thick bass, great piano sample, and groovetastic Rhodes. The percussion leaves something to be desired though. For a hi-hat that is as repetitive as this, I’d like to hear much more interesting samples and processing. What’s here gives off a slight metronome vibe that is especially apparent when exposed at sections like 2:24-2:40. Still, I think the other elements overcome the shortcomings of the percussion.

Larry covered my views on the piano solo at 2:06. It was ok but could have been better, especially stacked in the same song as the wonderful violin solo.

Skillful arrangement of the source, great atmosphere and solid production make my vote easy.

YES

[GrayLightning]

Let me encapsulate this vote - Wonderful work all around guys. The great violin solo puts this way over the top.

Definite YES