*NO* Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 'Paintings of Forgotten Phunk'

[djpretzel]

Hey, Roe again. Haven't been mixing for a while but I cooked something up nice the other day. It's a remix of the Lost Paintings track from Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Very funky, slow grooves and almost discoish in places with the guitar doing a somewhat western melody vibe, makes you think of a sad cowboy...or a heroic one. Two cowboys eatin' da puddin'? Lol hope not.

So yeah, seeya again soon. Btw don't listen to zircon he thinks there are wrong notes O_o haha. (at least I don't hear them).

[zircon]

The notes ARE wrong, bro.. :06 in the original and :09 in yours, they are just not the same. And, while some people will disagree with me, I think the harmony that you have set up there in the intro is a lot worse than the one in the original. Just sounds ugly. But that's not a huge deal, it's something I brought up only because it hit me as soon as the song began.

The arrangement factor is here. You've got a lot of cool things going on with the different instruments, variations on the original, some variations in the background chords and the progression. Good stuff. The problem here IMO is the production. We've been telling you this for just about everything you've submitted. Stop over-compressing and over-saturating everything. Everything is so huge and lumped together that your ears get worn down quickly listening to it. Giving the different parts some room to breathe will relieve stress on the listener AND make stuff sound more musical, because you'll actually be able to *hear* the harmony notes and pads.

The choice of instruments is solid, though again, the massive compression on the drums makes them sound way too punchy, and they override the other parts. The strings here are kind of abrasive too at times; overly cutting when you have the more interesting stuff going on in the guitar parts. Also, the wah on the guitar does get a bit old after awhile, and it really didn't sound all that great to begin with.

To to summarize, some production issues.. pretty much the same ones you've been having, arrangement is great though (aside from those wrong notes). Please tweak this and resubmit.

NO

[GrayLightning]

Let me state, I am extremely familiar with this source material. It's one of my favorite game soundtrack pieces ever made, so I have high expectations. My arrangement concerns may not be shared by the others, but I think this much too straightfoward. Ooh boy, this is has a range of issues.

- Questionable notes all over the place - especially when you start pitch bending. Yikes.

- Limited arrangement. The structure and pacing is fairly conservative. I like the additions you added here and there. They added a breath of fresh air, but overall this is a lot more limited than what I'm used to hearing from you.

- Production issues are pervasive. The instruments just don't gel. Everything sounds like it's in its own soundspace. Everything is flooded with reverb. Everything is overcompressed and loud. Everything just sounds like a wash of sounds and reverb creating a wall of sound. There's no depth in terms of front to back, everything is in your face. This makes it tiring for the ears to listen to on headphones.

- I love the strings and the composition, a bit too much reverb though. The tail gets messy.

- Love the guitar and rhythm, but again gets repetitive and those bends as cited above, need to be cleaned up.

This mix lacks a lot of polish that was present in your CC mix that's on the panel now. This needs a bunch of work at this point. Still, this has that cool Roe-style/sound. But again, where's the arrangement ... where's the polish? I feel like we're constantly harping on the same issues with you sometimes. NO

[The Orichalcon]

I'm not so hung on up the beginning as zirc is here. I think it sounds all right. The production is where this mix goes wrong. The percussion in this is just so damn loud and repetative and it doesn't need to be. Really distracts from the mix for me. The strings are over-reverbed, as is the guitar.

Now as for the actual mix, there are some wonderfully creative ideas in here. The mix has a great sound to it which is just being killed by the production issues. The original has the reverb sound, but it's also a lot quieter compared to this remix and more atmospheric. You really need to drop back on the reverb sound in this and allow the instruments to sound more upfront. I think if you do drop back the reverb you'll find the instruments will then be too loud, so turn them down! Especially the strings, which need to have an enveloping sound while not being overbearing.

The arrangement is good. I'm liking pretty much everything here, you just need to work on the sound of the mix, give it the attention it deserves. Zircon's pretty much summed up what's needed in his second paragraph.

Overall, nice sound. Just work on the mix some more and get it to a pleasing level of production quality.

NO

[Liontamer]

Demon Castle Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight Original Game Soundtrack - 20 "Lost Painting"

Played this on VGF66 and was loving the feel here. It's a cool genre conversion, but the same problems apparent in most of Alex's subs are here. Too loud and the texture is bad. The strings don't move naturally, and in this case, the arrangement is relatively straightforward, though I like what was done regardless. If this didn't absolutely sound so unwieldy, I could mistake it for a collab between Alex and Vurez, what with its twangy sounds and Wild West style.

I wasn't feeling much on the "wrong notes" area. /shrugs Sounded fine to me on that level overall, but the issues laid down by zircon, Gray & TO are the meat and potatoes of what's wrong with the track. This sounds like a total rushjob. It's time to stop getting rejected with the same old story time and time again and realize your potential.

NO