djpretzel Posted September 30, 2005 Share Posted September 30, 2005 Pretty sweet imo... RAD TROMBONE LICKS - djp Right then, I apologize for the long delay, but the firewall on my college's campus is a pain when uploading files, but the file's back up. Not to mentione the fact that my mail server's acting crazy, so I have to send from this E-mail (origianl was theirishninja@red-scare.net) It'll still be up there when you have the time to check it. Here's the original message -- Remixer Name: The Vagabonds Website: www.the-vagabonds.com Game Remixed: Somic the Hedgehog 2 Song Remixed: Casino Night Zone Misc: I am Geoff Moonen, member of the OCR forums and member of the 15-piece Long Island band The Vagabonds (Our full official name is The Vagabonds: Ska-Core Jazz Ensemble). We've been together a little over a year, and just recently released our first CD. On it, we recorded our only cover, The rendition of Casino Night heard here. When we play it live, we play it one of two ways: either As you hear it here, except every single member of the band gets a solo (The song goes for about 7 minutes when we do that), or sans solos and it's just done as an intro to another song. We recorded this section by section. First rhythm (one guitar, bass, drums, congas, keyboard), then horns (alto, tenor and bari saxes, two trumpets, and two trombones). The solos in order are Tenor Sax, alternating trumpets, alternating trombones, guitar, Drum kit and congas alternating. Pretty much all of the solos were done in one or two takes. On the CD, the song is listed as "Casino Night Zone", but I made up the title because, to me, the song feels like the soundtrack to a weird and wild night in Vegas or Atlantic City, and you'll wake up the next morning with a bad headache. That's about it... the song's on our CD "...and Still Counting", which can be heard on our website. I hope you enjoy it! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted October 2, 2005 Share Posted October 2, 2005 cool song, and i lvoe to hear more live instrumental stuff like this. i have no problem if htis passes, but there are some things that bug me that i cant get past. 1. the recording is messy. the horns sound too far back. 2. the horns have pretty bad intonation at times. 3. some of the solos are pretty sloppy. i realize i'm being kind of harsh, but it bugs me, so deal with it. best of luck. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted October 6, 2005 Share Posted October 6, 2005 Alright, since it's jazzy and it's Sonic 2, and my lady overheard me listening to this, I allowed her to guest judge. She gets her long-winded reviewing style from me. Paige dropped some comments, followed up by my vote: Larry is letting me guest judge on this song. For those of you who might be jealous, I can say it is because I'm doing certain "favors" for him. But, I might also add that it's because I actually perform jazz/jazz improv on occasion. Bet you didn't know I could make crap music as well and as frequently as I can crap on it. But to the review. I have to admit, The Vagabonds have a lot of heart. A 15 piece band, three minutes of jamming, and a little Sega soundbite give this piece a lot of flavor or "flava" as someone else we know would say. Unfortunately, having a lot of heart, as any incompetent lover knows, does not an orgasmic OC ReMix make. The 15 Vagabonds had to record "Why Don't I Remember Last Night" according to their section, rather than as a group and that led to what I can only describe as similar to me actually trying to play Sonic 2: sloppy and lucky on occasion. I believe the recording situation is probably the reason all of the pieces sound confused, slightly off-tempo, and frequently off pitch (0:47-56, the whole trumpet solo from around 1:06-16). A lot of what is wrong with this piece could be the fault of a crappy sound mixer or engineer. Or y'all might just need to physically get together to record this ditty-even if the sound is less professional, I'm betting your mad musician skillz will shine through any pop and fuzz. I know what it's like to improvise with a group--although not a 15 piece group. You really can't have too much going on while someone else is jamming during their solo. It's too hard for the performer (well at least it's always been too hard for me) to concentrate and tends to ruin the focus that a solo is intended to bring in the first place. The guitar solo around 1:43 is groovin' I'll give them that. But once 2:07 hits, the drums and bongas revert back to the norm--confused out of synch, and a little too hammy. Also, I see little reason why the theme has to be repeated constantly throughout the entire piece. Although there is a lot of original instrumentation and improvisation on the Sonic 2 Casino Nights theme, the melody in "Why Don't I Remember Last Night?" remains too similar, even in my liberal opinion, to be considered an OC ReMix. The Vagabonds have done a cover, a well-intentioned, nostalgic and cute little cover. More development of the theme, a little more organization in their instrumentation and solos are a must, and also a must would be to resubmit so I can download what I know will be an awesome new version to my computer. I have a lot of heart, but I'll have you people know I'm a very competent lover. You people don't get any bright ideas. Meh, the Sega intro was bootleg. Do some cool effects on it or something so it can be a cooler transition to the opening. The energy was pretty good leading in, though the brass was already out of tune at :05 for the first few notes of the Casino Night melody, which isn't the strong start you want. The horns playing the melody do need to be placed more in the foreground during the first section. Pretty much sticking to the cover route to open things up, but pulling it off more than decently. The sax solo at :47 was fairly sloppy and messy in places. It's pulled off "OK" but sounds like the player pulled off more than he could chew for the performance. Too much squeakyness, not enough smoothness. Kicks it over to the trumpet solo at 1:06 which is also decent, but has some flat spots, particularly from at 1:15-1:19. What was with that trombone solo from 1:24-1:42? I realize it's supposed to sound free, but the phrasing isn't that well written/improvised, IMO. Very flat, VERY sloppy, just not polished there. The guitar solo at 1:42 was much better pulled off. 2:00 featured a drum/percussion solo with the guitar filling out the back that was pretty good before going back to the source tune at 2:19. I liked how the instrumentation behind the solos would at least keep overtly referencing the Casino Night theme. On that level, I felt the arrangement was a pass, so I wasn't worried there. Got another iteration of the source at 2:19 that was a bit stronger the second time around. Didn't like whatever was in the background there from 2:57-3:07; interfered with the finish a bit, IMO. I gotta say, the first time I listened to this, the mistakes, slight off-timing, and rough spots were really sticking out to me like a sore thumb. Over time, the track became a lot more pleasant to listen to. For the most part things were pulled off well, and I like the ensemble feel you guys went for. Recording in pieces and then trying to synch up the various parts occasionally led to some iffy spots like Paige honed in on, but not a bad effort in trying to piece the track together that way. The sound balance between all of the instruments was a little bit rough, but nothing major to me unlike with Vigilante. But Vig's always pretty spot on, and I agreed with his comments and Paige's about the occasional bad intonation and wonky solos. There were just too many spots where things were out of tune for me to be comfortable with. I also think this has a shot as passing, so this may be able to pull off a nice comeback. If not, I'd say 1) work on adjusting the timing on things slightly so it fits a bit better, particularly the hand drum work, 2) tighten up the overall performance where possible on some of the out of tune spots, and 3) redo the sax, trumpet, and trombone solos. If you do nothing else, do #3. Personally, I thought this was cool, but still have my reservations. Sorry for being a stickler, cool cats. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harmony Posted October 6, 2005 Share Posted October 6, 2005 Fun stuff but I agree that there are some big problems that will keep this from passing in the shape it’s in. At some points, sloppy timing, bad intonation and poor mixing make this sound like a recorded practice session rather than the final mix. As Paige mentioned, your performances sound decent enough though that under the right recording circumstances and with good post production work a lot of those problems would probably disappear. I’d also like to hear some better transitional ideas rather than cold stops and repeated simple drum fills between iterations of the theme. Once might work, but in this version we have a lot (0:47, 1:04, 1:23, 2:00, 2:18, 2:42). I appreciate the "sega" intro but I don't think the verbatim soundclip works with the style here. You guys might try to make it your own by performing it with your instruments or something to that effect. Finally, there’s the disturbing fact that the piano and bass get stiffed out of solos. Not…cool… Enjoyable work guys, I wish I could see it performed live. As for this mix, work out some kinks or re-record and send it on back! NO (Please Resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 I think overall the recording here is pretty good, though the piano could be brought up just a *little* bit. The arrangement is nice too. The solos are slightly sloppy at times, though, and as a piano player I wish the pianist could have gotten a chance to shine However, I agree that the theme could have been created more repeatedly in terms of the transitions and the overall structure. More development would definitely be nice in terms of the variations on the original theme, as well as tightening of the performance. I enjoyed this - a little bit of tweaking (if at all possible) would make this able to pass our bar readily, I'd say. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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