Majora's Mask: Clock Town/Stone Tower Remix

[Hylian Dan]

Edit: Here's the updated version.

Hey everyone, first timer here. Here's my track:

http://soundcloud.com/dan-merrill-1/under-the-mask-v2

(Based on the

and

themes from Majora's Mask)

This is the first time I've attempted something like this. I had a sense that the Clock Town and Stone Tower themes were related to each other, so I started playing with them in Garageband to see how much they had in common. Eventually I started working on a decent structure for the track itself, and then started playing with instruments. I wasn't planning to make a nice remix out of it, but I was having fun so I just kept polishing the track and now I'm pretty happy with it.

My main goal with this was to expose how the two themes fit together, since I think it's an interesting thematic connection. I tried not to modify the original parts much since I wanted them to speak for themselves. As I made this I was thinking of a person going through an average day pretending to be okay, trying to hide what he's feeling. The song ends with the upbeat, everyday Clock Town theme suppressing the lonely despair of the Stone Tower theme - the mask falls back into place.

I based the structure of my mix on the

song from Godspell, which shifts abruptly through a number of parts before throwing them all together into a mess of sound at the end, where certain parts fade in and out of hearing as the jumble goes on.

Thanks for any feedback you've got. I don't know if I'll keep working on this and submit it or if I'll just post it to youtube and call it a day.

[Ethan Rex]

Timing in the stone tower lead in the beginning is a bit off. also your clock town chords are a little loud and a bit bass heavy. When you bring in most of the instruments near the end, make sure you mix the sounds so they don't clutter the soundscape like they do now.

Arrangement is interesting. There's a sort of a major against minor feel going on here, and that can be either taken as good or not depending on your opinions i suppose - i'm in the latter category. Regardless of my opinions however, there are a lot of similar sounds to the sources in this mix; this matched up with the lack of variation in source tune makes this feel more like a cover than a ReMix.

Some good ideas going on here, but it needs some TLC. Thanks for sharing!

[Theophany]

Cool observation. Majora's Mask is interesting because sometimes discord works in its favor to enhance the feeling. Day 3 of Clocktown is a good example. In this track I would say some parts definitely work better than others in that regard, but it's still a cool concept. Thanks for sharing.

[crypto_magnum]

Yeah, the previous comments really nailed it. Definitely take a listen to Day 3 Clocktown for a perfect example of major against minor working well. It's a really interesting effect, yet also technically difficult to pull off.

I think that to really get these sources working well together, you'd need to get very liberal with the arrangement, particularly reharmonization... in other words, maybe a really clever chord progression would do the trick, though personally there isn't an obvious one that jumps out at me. For my taste, the dissonances aren't quite hitting the spot just yet.

This is a really cool experiment though. Can't stress enough how important it is to try stuff like this. Bold is better than boring! Thanks for sharing. =)

[One-Winged Angle]

Hylian Dan,

I love the experiment. I think it's awesome to mix new tunes together and see what comes out. Maybe remixing is like cooking . . . dang, that's kinda deep.

That said, this remix doesn't seem to blend real well. I agree with what crypto_magnum said - it seems like you're trying to throw the original melodies together and see what happens. Hence, the mix gives off an unfinished aura. The two melodies sound a little jarring when played simultaneously.

BUT, the beauty of remixing is that you can keep working and trying and experimenting. I think this is a great idea that just needs some more time. And please, don't stop exploring crazy notions and interesting brainwaves. Perseverance (and a little craziness) makes the remixing world go round!

[jnWake]

I also have to agree with magnum. The idea is very interesting, but you have to do adjustments.

For example, in the first section, the A# from Stone Tower clashes too much, since one of the Clock Tower chords uses B. This type of dissonances can work well sometimes, but in this particular case, the notes are in very similar scales (if not the same), so the clash is way too noticeable.

The section with Stone Tower's intro manages to avoid this problem since the notes aren't that close, so the notes that would disagree a lot don't sound bad.

On the third section, I feel the clash sounds well with the exception of the second voice that plays the Stone Tower melody.

The following two sections lack a bit of structure, they don't seem to have a purpose.

On 2:00, it becomes very confusing, and for example, at 2:07, it sounds very bad. The "interlude" at 2:20 is interesting but then it gets very confusing again.

Anyway, appart from that, everything sounds mechanical (especially the acoustic guitar). I'm not sure but the samples sound like taken directly from the game, which is cool, but I'd prefer better samples.

Transitions between sections are usually weak since they are very abrupt. I'd think of adding a bass or drum that plays during most of the song, allowing to create better transitions.

Overall, the idea is very very nice but execution could be polished! I think this is promising so you should work on it!

[Garrett Williamson]

Heavy on GarageBand instruments.

Everyone else has basically spoken for me. Most certainly for me is that the mix of the song isn't all that great. :/

But everything else sounds pretty good.

[Hylian Dan]

Thanks for all the feedback. I went back and reworked the whole mix, getting very liberal with the composition this time. I figured out that both the Clock Town and Stone Tower themes are derived from the game's

, so I worked that in to tie the mix together (also included

this time). I'm much happier with the arrangement now.

I also got rid of the Garageband instruments

Here the revised mix.

I changed the name to "Whenever There's a Meeting" (a parting is sure to follow) since I think the song fits that quote from the game. Around the second verse I imagine someone realizing their friend is gone, and the rest of the song deals with coming to terms with that.

[Skolar]

Much better than the first version! You're making exactly the kinds of changes that it needed, in my opinion. Very good job, dude.

As I've taken more notice of game music lately, I think I've caught this type of thing in Kondo's work more than a few times. It always makes me happy because I tell myself I'll try to work it into a remix someday.

This is awesome, keep it up.