djpretzel Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 I know you guys have a general rule about professionalisim in the mixes that you accept, but the strongest point in this mix is infact it's retro-modern apeal. You see, I wanted to capture this game's very escence and mutate it into something that is/was unique to this game/era. Alot of that..in my mind has to do with the brilliant sounds that the Genises produced. This mix has a multitude of samples ripped from SoR, Contra Hard Corps, and even a record scatching sample from none other than Sonic 2's Metropolis Zone. The rest of the sounds were produced by a very old keybored, A Yamaha PSS-170. But the twist is everything is put through a modern digital mixer and/or my Magix Program. Hence "retro modern". Dispite it's rather short length and strange samples...I hope that it's atmosphere and over all presentation will find it's way into your retro-gamer souls, and OCR's collection as well. But if not, I still am glad you all at least took the time to listen. Jredd- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 http://www.zophar.net/gym/sor1.rar - Round 3 ("Moon Beach") Heh. Pretty weird sounds. Barely sounds like the source tune to start, but I can hear it clearly alluded to starting at :23 with that warbly-sounding synth, before the melody kicks in at :47. I'm not against the approach or the sound effects being used in here, but the production quality is pretty weak. Someone helpz! The melody remains fairly muffly and indistinct here, along with everything else in a sea of low-end frequencies, which undermines a lot of the writing choices here. At only 2:11-long, this hardly did enough with the melody to meaningfully rearrange it. Already at 1:36, you're winding the track down, and the melody was involved for less than a minute. You could easily make this longer and continue to explore the source material more, Trevin. Clean up the soundfield as well. Retro atmosphere doesn't mean muddy. Keeping it nonetheless. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harmony Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 Good stuff Jredd. I’m really digging the use of some of the samples. The Sonic scratches and the glass breaking first used at 0:45 for the transition are nice touches. Unfortunately this is drowned in muddiness and clutter. Many of your synths are fighting for space in the same low register. Try giving some of elements higher pitched parts. You might also consider transposing the entire mix up a few half-steps. That would put a little distance between the bass/kick combo and the melodic synths. The cluttered intro goes on for a little too long for such a short mix. It’s not until 0:49 that we get a cleaner sound but less than 20 seconds later it sounds as though you intentionally drop some of the higher frequencies out (1:03-1:18). With the muddiness of the rest of the track, you can’t afford to lose what few mids and highs you have. That sections sounds much better when the percussion comes back with some highs at 1:18. The percussion in general is nice; good variety of sounds and patterns. I’m not a fan of the hard oscillating panning on the lead synth starting at 1:20. I think it greatly weakens it’s impact. You also should work on the ending. Aside from it coming about a minute too soon, the water sfx sounds too much like static to serve as a base for the other elements. I like it’s brief appearance in the intro though. The arrangement ideas are certainly here but this needs some good old-fashioned polish work before it really shines. Keep working at it. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analoq Posted November 9, 2005 Share Posted November 9, 2005 first, i very much admire that you're taking risks with the overall sound of your artistic vision! even if it's a tad gimmicky, i like to hear something different. however, just because you're pulling these samples from all these sources doesn't mean they're going to work together. you still need to do proper processing and production to make things tight and captivating. you can do this while still maintaining the 'retro modern' sound you're going for. beyond that.. At only 2:11-long, this hardly did enough with the melody to meaningfully rearrange it. this is my main problem with the arrangement, i'm left going "Where's the rest of it?" when it's over. no Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrayLightning Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 Finally more streets of rage mixes. Unfortunately this has several problems. - underdeveloped arrangement - cluttered sound - very muddy and bottom heavy, the bass and bottom end frequencies virtually drown out everything else. I do like a lot of retro music, but concept and genre alone isn't enough to bypass presentation issues. Keep it up, some neat stuff going on here, but I feel this needs quite a bit of work in the arrangement and production to pass. I really dig the strange as well as the retro sounds though. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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