OceansAndrew Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 Contact Information ReMixer name: Dekamik Real name: Dennis von Bargen Email: Website: http://soundcloud.com/dekamik/ Submission Information Game arranged: Mega Turrican Name of arrangement: Mega Turrican Techno Medley Songs arranged (order of appearance): Level 1-1, Level 1 Secret Area, Level 1-2, Level 3-3 Comments: I’ve always been a fan of video game music. It started with Command & Conquer Red Alert and Unreal (the very first game, not tournament) on PC and Secret of Mana on Super Nintendo, and since then I’ve been hooked with a burning passion for music. I didn’t actually grow up with any Turrican game at all. It wasn’t until around autumn 2008 that I found out about this franchise and checked the music out. The music from the Turrican games changed my view on music forever, and I was especially impressed by the Mega Turrican versions, considering the fact that most soundtracks for the Sega Genesis sounded quite bad. Before that, I didn’t know exactly how musically capable the Yamaha YM2612 chip actually is; it was quite a revelation. Then and then, June 17th , I got a lot of inspiration for making a remix out of a Turrican song, and so I decided to make a medley as a tribute to some of the best and most underrated video game music out there. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted November 9, 2012 Author Share Posted November 9, 2012 Love hearing Mega Turrican! I will admit to being wary of the uninspired track title, and I am steeling myself to be critical of the arrangement present, and not just letting the track coast on the strength of the source material. THe initial treatment is solid with a distinct tempo shift and a new style feel, and several initial sections that have some good expansion. The transitions between themes weren't super inspired, but were effective, and the varied sources felt good together, despite not being combined in a more complicated way. I think some blending of themes with each other at the same time would have improved the track as a whole. As is, it's like a short journey through the soundtrack's best, and while a medley style track like this would have difficulty gaining traction at OCR, the expansion of the themes and original writing helped it feel like a speed tour. The sounds used were a bit dated, but fit together well enough as a whole, and it had heart. I liked the dramatic ending, which is a pretty good way to fade a track. It's a close call, but i'm inclined to tip it over the edge. Yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted November 12, 2012 Share Posted November 12, 2012 Been listening to this one for a while now. It has some good aspects and some not-so-good aspects, and I'm pretty on the fence with it. The melodies are definitely personalized, and the track overall is a fun listen, with nothing sounding out of place. The transitions, as Andrew mentioned, are nothing super special, but overall the track sounds pretty cohesive. I would have liked there to be more interplay with the melodies, which I think you could have done, instead of sticking straight to a medley format, which is one of the detractors overall. In terms of production things are mostly pretty strong, but what bugged me was that the track overall has a super constant tempo that is quite driven into me with the drums to the point that it started growing old. The track runs a little long as is, and the combination with the drums doesn't help much. A stronger change of dynamics or mood would have added more variation and made the track stronger as a result. On the good side, the synths are pretty nostalgic and used to good effect. Things are clear, and the balance is strong as well. Again, I'm pretty on the fence with this, so I'm curious what other judges will think. I will go with (for now): YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Hmm, the lack of dynamics really got to me on this track. Some of the lead work was good, but the drums were just way too repetitive and track felt very one-note. As a medley, it did feel cohesive which is no small feat, but I would like to see more variety in terms of instrumentation and energy. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 Crazy writing. Love the melody and chord progression. Great foundation, but you've got some serious medlytits going on. The drums never change even from section to section when you're changing songs entirely. There's no rhyme or reason to the different sources. It just goes from one to another with no overall flow. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 For some reason, the stereo/frequency balance in this mix really hurts my ears on headphones. I'm not sure if it's just a frequency range I'm overly sensitive to, or if there's something going on with the balance of elements in the track, but I physically can't make it through this track on headphones. Am I just high or something? Not sure what's going on here but I wasn't able to listen more than 1/4 of the way through on headphones. Can anyone corroborate or explain what might be going on? (I dug what I heard on the writing for the first part, for what it's worth!) ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 Emu, it's just you on the issues you're hearing, AFAIK. Try another setup. Crazy writing. Love the melody and chord progression. Great foundation, but you've got some serious medlytits going on. The drums never change even from section to section when you're changing songs entirely. There's no rhyme or reason to the different sources. It just goes from one to another with no overall flow. Fully in agreement with this. The synths here were pretty generic and not mixed well IMO. It's not terrible, but something about the mixing makes things sound kind of lossy and distant. The treatment of the Stage 1-1 theme (an awesome theme, of course) was pretty straightforward. The drums at :14 were pretty poor; they really need more energy. Palpable & Vig were right, the percussion writing basically had one gear most of the way, and that was a big reason this dragged out after a while The transition to "Stage 1 (Secret Area)" at 2:45 wasn't awful, but it also wasn't very smooth, and felt like an awkward key change to move onto the next thing. The transitions at 3:36 to Stage 1-2 and 4:46 to Stage 3-3 were also pretty weak as well. I'm not sure at all what OA or DA were impressed by, and I thought Palp was wrong given how flimsy the transitions turned out. Sorry, Dennis, I wish I could be more positive on this arrangement, as Turrican's music is excellent. But the sound design was bland, the instruments lacked impact, the mixing lacked clarity, the transitions didn't flow, and there wasn't much dynamic contrast throughout the piece. The effort is there, but there's just a lot of detail work that falls short as far as making this cohesive and well-developed. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 My fellow J's have left some very good crits above and I find myself agreeing with the NO votes here. I won't rehash on what's already been said, but I'll try to elaborate on some other items. For the amount of energy you're going for, the drums really don't have the tone or punch to back it up. The snare specifically sounds buried and a bit garbled. The hihat is very static sounding as it plays the same tone and velocity repeatedly on each offbeat. Kick isn't as much of an offender as the rest, but still could use a bit more presence/powah. The part writing is the real strength here, but the production still has a ways to go to catch up. NO resubmit, please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 But the sound design was bland, the instruments lacked impact, the mixing lacked clarity, the transitions didn't flow, and there wasn't much dynamic contrast throughout the piece. The effort is there, but there's just a lot of detail work that falls short as far as making this cohesive and well-developed. Basically this. The whole piece sounds dynamically flat. Transitions are flimsy and the drums feel like they're on autopilot the whole time. This is a prime example of the kind of medley that I don't like. Each source treatment feels like a separate piece. Why not do 3 or 4 really well developed Turrican remixes, rather than a series of brief looks at the soundtrack? Developmentally this goes nowhere. A-B-C-D-done. Sorry but I need more a cohesive piece of music. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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