OceansAndrew Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Game: Donkey Kong Country Title: Sexy K Original song title: King K. Rool (Gangplank Galleon) Original Composers: Dave Wise, Robin Beanland, Eveline Fischer Additional Info: This tune was made with sex appeal, entirely in Reason. A good electronica remix of this song was well overdue, so I took it upon myself to beat the crap out of some sounds until it did what I wanted it to do. Enjoy. ReMixer name: Enemy Onion Real name: Shane Mesa Email: Web site: soundcloud.com/shanemesa User ID: EnemyOnion NOTE: If you make this available for download, please use my soundcloud link above ONLY. -shane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 As much as I love this source, the arrangement could use a breakdown, because it's not readily apparent what's there on the first listen. The track was 5:13.5 long, so I needed the source tune overtly used for more 156.75 seconds for the source material to be dominant in the piece: :00.5-:35 - source opening (:00-:25 of source) :43-1:13 - stuttered lower backing synths based on the source bridge (:31-:37 of source); liberal but overt enough reference to that pattern for me to count 1:13-1:43 - rhythmically similar to bassline of source bridge (:31-:37 of source), but IMO too liberal to count as source use UNTIL 1:28-1:43 1:43-2:21 - based on main verse of source (:38-1:01 of source) 2:21-2:36 - loosely based on bassline of 1:06-1:08 of the source; IMO too liberal to count but arguable 2:36-3:14 - sounds like original writing, perhaps loosely based on 1:01-1:16 of source, but IMO too liberal to count 3:14-3:40 - loosely based on backing bassline of source's bridge (:31-:37 of source) 3:40-4:20.5 - original writing 4:20.5-5:06 - based on main verse of source (1:16-1:31 of source) 163 seconds of overt source usage (along with 41 sections of looser connections which I'm not counting) = 51.99% source usage, at least With that out of the way, let's get to the track in the big picture. FIRST LISTEN It was definitely way on the loud side. The :43-1:13 build arguably went on for too long and felt sparse despite the volume, moving onto some pretty simplified and minimalistic building until 1:43 finally brought in the main melody of the source. By 2:07, this was arguably going on too long with stripped down instrumentation that came off as aimless. I'm trying to remain open-minded here, but I'm not feeling much direction or substance from this so far, despite the creative approach with the source. Beyond the basic beats, there's nothing that fills out the soundscape or provides direction; hopefully another J can better articulate the issues here. 2:36 moved into seemingly original material not tied to the source, at least not in any overt way, before 3:14 went into some super liberal stuff to finally match the backing pattern of the source. 3:42 went back to seemingly original material, and it wasn't until 4:20.5 until the source tune finally came back in an obvious way for easily the strongest part of the arrangement going towards the finish. MULTIPLE LISTENS Well, I hate to sound like I'm shitting on whatever genre this is, but the structure initially came off as too disjointed. I have to say for any judge listening to this that this potentially needs 5-10 listens to really wrap one's head around the instrumentation and dynamics and at least not be put off by the very unorthodox structure entirely without giving it more of a chance. Some of the core instrumentation was pretty vanilla, and the sparseness of various sections WAS initially off-putting. That said, I think after listening to it many, many times that it's structured with purpose and has reasonable mixing (despite being too loud). I'm NOT saying it's a display of ZOMG technical prowess and amazing composition that only the elite can understand, but it's capably assembled. My knee-jerk reaction was disliking this odd piece, but it's creative and has merit, even if it's outside my personal taste. It's not a strong YES, but it gets by. We'll see if there are other polarizing reactions. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Sorry Larry, I'm going to have to be a contrary voice here. I feel like this is much too underdeveloped and sloppy, on both production and fx, to meet the bar. First off, I should preface by saying that I admire the creative approach here, there's definitely a lot of cool ideas being tossed around here and some moments of brilliance throughout. However, when comparing this production to other chiptune-influenced electro house mixes from artists like halc, the soundscape seems extremely thin. There's many extended periods in the song where there's only one or two very basic synths and the beat playing at a time. It wasn't until the VERY last section, with the sidechained synth and the lead going, that the soundscape felt like it was properly fleshed out. Most of the transitions/sweeps/drops felt pretty underwhelming; for lack of a better suggestion, the timing on your sequencing and drops doesn't really maximize the impact when a new melody or section is introduced. Sometimes I feel like the drops themselves are too abundant; for example, you've got a very dramatic, drawn out drop at :33, but then another one comes up at 1:03 and it just feels redundant. Oh man, that hard-panned synth at 1:13 hurts my ears on headphones Because of how exposed it is due to the lack of other instrumentation a lot of the time, that jarring panning automation becomes physically painful when you're not listening on speakers. Source-wise, I see how a lot of your melody lines were derived from K. Rool's theme. However, there's some periods of time where the remix goes for over a minute without ever overtly referencing the source, it loses me as a listener. From 2:20 to 4:20, I barely heard anything that even vaguely referenced the original, and at that point I nearly forgot what I was listening to. I would personally say this is too liberal of an arrangement for OCR, even without the rest of the issues I mentioned. I hope some of this feedback is useful, and you don't think I'm being too much of a dick here I think you've got some great ideas here, and no doubt you'll be able to get a mix passed the panel with some improvement, but I personally don't think submission is quite there. The arrangement would need to be truncated to remove some of the excess original writing (or tie it back to the source further) and I would also push for production improvements, such as the panning and the sequencing/timing on your buildups, before resubmitting this one (assuming it doesn't pass this time around.) NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted August 28, 2012 Share Posted August 28, 2012 I think Emu's judgement on this is excellent. He hit many points that I wanted to hit myself and more. I'm going to echo that there really are some great ideas here, and I strongly hope you fix this one up for us, because I'd love to see it on the front page! NO (resubmit, please!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted August 28, 2012 Share Posted August 28, 2012 Oh man, that hard-panned synth at 1:13 hurts my ears on headphones Because of how exposed it is due to the lack of other instrumentation a lot of the time, that jarring panning automation becomes physically painful when you're not listening on speakers. If anything needs to be co-signed in the votes so far, it's this. This is way too annoying for the amount of time you've got it going, I literally winced when it started up. That's a dealbreaker right there. There are other parts that are grating but not dealbreakers, and they would be better off fixed. Honestly, I wasn't hearing a lot else that was problematic enough to reject this. More source would have been nice, but the last section (4:20 onward) was awesome and bought you a lot of points IMO. The structure flowed well-enough for a disjointed song - reminds me a little bit of my own posted stuff even - and your production skills are apparent. Remove the annoying synth or make it less annoying and you have my YES. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 I agree with Vinnie that this isn't too far off the bar. I won't rehash on the grating synth parts, but I'll echo emo that there were extended sections that did come off as kinda empty sounding. 4:20 DEFINITELY is an improvement in this department. I wouldn't mind hearing more of the track fleshed out to that degree, but I'm also willing to chalk the minimalism up to the chiptune-influenced electro genre. Transitions felt a bit sloppy in places, like 3:40-3:42. Arrangement-wise, while I would like to hear more overt source in the extended middle section, I feel like we have enough here to qualify. Not far off, I could see this one coming back quickly ready to be posted. No, resubmit please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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