OCR02550 - *YES* Donkey Kong Country 3 (GBA) 'Corn-fed Kong'

[Liontamer]

This was a flood candidate for the DKC3 album chosen by Emu. I think the bland drum pattern that goes in and out and the slightly-off timing of things drag it down from DP and the panel should make a call on it.

Please don't rush a vote just to make one, but try to vote ASAP. - LT

Cornfed Kong

ARRANGED BY: zykO

PERFORMED BY: zykO feat. diotrans, Diggi Dis

Rockface Rumble (Game Boy Advance)

zykO: I listen to a lot more country than I let on. More of the Hank Williams III variety, no doubt, but my ears perked up immediately when I saw the opportunity to work with this source. I have a soft spot for the wondrous mix of the piano, violin, and upright bass, and with a little guitar, it's practically gold. The GBA version of "Rockface" is so completely unlike its SNES counterpart and while I was tempted to go off the deep end with the ambiance and SFX (as you'd expect me to), I opted instead to go for writing a song and letting the vibe of the piece do all the table setting instead of my normal dose of meandering scene-building.

I was very blessed to be able to welcome the talents of incredibly talented folk like diotrans and Diggi Dis onto the project. Otherwise, we'd all have been stuck listening to me sequence piano and violin, hahaha. No, but really, their work is PRO, no question about it. WILL DO AGAIN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtzMF8cMKVE

[DarkeSword]

Really relaxing. Percussion kind of lacks 'oomph' but I don't think it's too bad.

Love the organic feel. Really captures the appeal of the original. Quite nice.

YES

[Nutritious]

Liking what I'm hearing here. Zyko takes the country twang of the original and kicks it up a few notches. Arrangment

The somewhat out of tune nature of the guitar is clearly intentional and really adds to the atmosphere. Piano was delicately executed, so it blends perfectly with the rest of the mix.

Nothing to complain about on the arrangement. Very well execute mix here & an enjoyable listen.

Yes

[Liontamer]

There were a couple of random pops/skips in here (1:50, 3:17, 5:19), but Emu mentioned the source files were kaput, so ah well.

The timing of the snare at :59 seemed just slightly off; am I making that up; it's possible it's just me, not that it was anything remotely close to a dealbreaker.

The snare pattern though was pretty bland and almost functioned like a metronome; you know, like when the clicks don't really work with the rest of the music, they just sound out louder than everything else and kind of get in the way. It's kind of strange, but the snare tone was a bit too "thick" and out of place during brief quieter areas like 1:51-2:08. The sound of it just doesn't fully click within this piece, and undermined the excellent cymbal writing.

Then bringing the snare pattern in during the other sections (2:14-2:48, 2:56-3:16, etc.), it just sounded like the pattern lacked any variation and undermined the overall flow. I wanted to make sure no one felt it was a significant enough issue to hold this back.

I hate to nitpick the snare drum, because it's obvious the piece is good stuff nonetheless. All of the live elements from Waleed, Amy and Frank were awesome, and provided so many great variations to the original theme. I think a different snare sound and some better variation of that plain pattern would have helped everything gel together a lot better, but the positives clearly outweigh one stickler issue. I'd really love to hear these 3 collab again, I never would have expected it.

YES

[halc]

a little rough around the edges in the production realm I suppose, but that's part of Zyko's charm. the piano as Justin mentioned was just luscious and beautiful. the lead guitar tuning didn't bug me, however there was this nasal quality about the EQ that I didn't love, and some of the timings felt a little looser than they should have been, but overall this is a pretty easy pass for me. quite a lovely arrangement.

YES