djpretzel Posted September 30, 2005 Share Posted September 30, 2005 Marty5 Matt Moore jmore01@alltel.net Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha Strange Sunset original song - We put together a 10 piece jazz fusion group, essentially for this song. -MattM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted October 2, 2005 Share Posted October 2, 2005 Solid solid stuff. I want this on the site. Right now it's very topheavy. please please please Boost the low end and resubmit. This should not be very hard to do, so for the love of sushi, just do it. NO RESUB "R" ELSE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted October 4, 2005 Share Posted October 4, 2005 Street Fighter EX OST - "Strange Sunset" Thanks for providing us the original. Man, it kicks some serious ass too. Not really the kind of thing I'd imagine as a Guile theme, but I was loving the jazzyness, especially the more freestylish stuff I heard. Great job by Ayako Saso. I'm a big fan of catchy but lengthy tracks that don't repeat themselves too often, as there's just so much creativity involved. I'll really have to check the soundtrack out. I'm very interested in hearing the remix approach here. Synth pad opens things up. Synth pad was kind of lo-fi and inferior to the original, but I love the xylo (Xylo? Ah shaddap, Gray.) stuff at :15. Really sticking closely with the original for the intro to start things off. Yeesh, LOUD sax at :30. Sounds like frequencies got cut off too. The production on this is pretty shoddy, honestly, and really doesn't present this properly. Whatever modulating noise came in at :45 is too loud and needs to be more of a background element. Get that bassline and piano sounding more in the forefront. Guitar came in at 1:01. At that point, I'm also low on the cymbals too. The performance there is good, but the cymbal activity is too quiet. Chorus at 1:30 and the performance is decent but the sound balance is just ALL over the place and needs work to save this. Brass is loud loud loud, drums are loud loud loud, everything else is just shunted WAY in the back. Otherwise sweet electric guitar work at 1:47 just bleeds and smooshes into the other instruments. Then the guitar solo is decent but sounds all muffly, and you can't hear the xlyo-ish stuff enough. Shot of trumpets at 2:07 are pretty dry; piano solo at 2:20 sounds just as lacking in the high end for clarity's sake. Horn action at 2:32 is cool but too loud. Synth on support at 2:48 is cool but too quiet. Just all these glaring and negatively impactful production issues all over the place. Audio deformation at 2:24. Just continuing to listen on, all of the stuff is fairly capably performed, and the transposing of the piece to the live fusion style is really effective on the performance side. It's just absolutely difficult to listen to because the production is bad. I hope you'd be able to do some major work on cleaning this up. Gray, analoq, Harmony, ANYONE that can give a good breakdown of some basic ideas to balance this track out like Vig mentioned, dear God, help these guys out. By the way Matt, at least credit your co-contributors in the submission letter so that they get some props too. Also, don't give your mix the exact same title as the source tune. Give it something different. I dunno, "The Sun Sets in the East." Who cares, just something different. Too bad we can't pass this. Very stylish cover that needs some serious post-production lovin'. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Orichalcon Posted October 4, 2005 Share Posted October 4, 2005 10 piece jazz group? This should be interesting. Sax that comes in at 0:30 is way too loud, tone it down to more comfortable levels. Piano is pretty good when it comes in. The synthy thing making the notes in the background is distracting, I'd slap a little reverb on that and tone it down. The guitar that comes in is pretty funky, the way it sounds isn't too good, but the way it's played in that jazz style is cool. We break out into the main section after 1:30, sounds pretty good. It's loud, could probably afford to be a little quieter, but otherwise I'm loving the power. The guitar that comes in at 1:47 as larry said is drowning everything out. The arrangement in this is seriously good. The piano is so groovy as it dances around in the background, the brass sections are played well. The production is what's killing this. The volume balancing needs a lot of work, just tweak everything until it's at a comfortable level. I too would love to see this resubmitted, as this is too good for the site to miss out on. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harmony Posted October 4, 2005 Share Posted October 4, 2005 I’m with Larry, the source is awesome. Now that that’s out of the way, this mix is pretty slick itself. I don’t think it’s quite up to par yet though so I’m going to close this one out and ask for a resub. The major problems that I’m hearing are: 1) a very close adherence to the source 2) poor instrument balance and separation 3) lack of appropriate EQ on certain instruments #2 and #3 I’ll comment on here since they’re easier to fix but once those are improved, I’m sure that #1 is going to be a large factor in my vote on the resub. I appreciate the effort that it takes to cover a complex piece like this but I’m not hearing as much creativity in composition or arrangement as I’d be comfortable with calling a “ReMix.” You really have to give your guys some sonic space here. That’s part of the fun of composing for an essentially fixed number of instruments; you get to choose seating assignments! Right now you’ve got everyone standing in the middle of the stage, people are tripping over each other’s cables, horns are blaring in the piano player’s ear and toes are seriously getting stepped on. Pan the brass to the left side of the stage, keep the bass relatively centered, move the guitar guy towards the right and give him some company with my man (or girl) on the keys. I know what I’d like but you need to experiment. Your drums have some nice wide individual panning on the toms, cymbals, etc. That’s cool but personally in a jazz setup I prefer not to hear the drums spread so widely across the stage. There are many choices to make so play with the positioning until sections like 1:01-1:30, 1:47-2:16 and 3:48-4:16 sound less cluttered. Why should you worry about panning in your mix when the source doesn’t seem to do much of that at all? Well, the elements in the source are much better balanced in terms of volume levels than in this mix. Staring things off, the trumpet at 0:30 is too loud and is in need of some reverb to help it mesh with the pads that are supporting it. As TO mentioned, the predominant synth during 0:45-1:30 is loud, dry and sitting dead center. I think a spot of reverb and a new position on stage is a good idea. I love loose performance of the clean guitar that comes in at 1:01 but you’ve gotta pan him away from the piano. The two are fighting for space and they would be much more complimentary to each other if they each had room to do their thing. I actually like the balance during the first part of the chorus section at 1:30. The horns are a bit loud but they work for me. The guitar at 1:47 is too loud for the remainder of the chorus. Even when things calm back down at 2:01 the guitar stays at this volume which is even more problematic without the horns to help balance it. I agree with Larry that the horn shots are dry and loud from 2:07-2:17. Additionally I’m hearing some clipping on the horns around 2:08 and an audio glitch near 2:23, but that might just be me. Great piano work at 2:17-3:00, although with the piano exposed, its lack of high EQ becomes apparent. It’s not too bad though. Nice sax solo as well but tone the volume down a bit, especially at 3:00 where it absolutely overpowers the piano. The guitar at 3:02 needs some compression to keep it’s volume levels in check. I understand that you should want to maintain a dynamic improv feel but here the guitar is a little too jumpy to me. The bass is understated throughout. Give it some punch by pushing the volume up a little, increasing the low EQ on it and possibly bringing some chorus/reverb into the picture. For the most part, the performances are pretty nicely done which means the hard part is potentially over. Just work on the issues that have been mentioned and go for the resub. Great work from all involved. NO (Please Resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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