*NO* Lufia 2 'Thinking About You'

[djpretzel]

* Contact Info

Remixer Name: SirRus

Real Name: Ravi Sharma

Email Address: Ravi.U.Sharma-1@ou.edu

*Remix Info

Name of game Remixed: Lufia 2 (SNES)

Name of song Remixed: Iris Theme

Your own comments about the mix: I have previously submitted an orchestral remix of this theme, and since that failed to pass am perservering with this non-orchestral take. Pretty simple compositionally, as it was arranged more with the ambience and soundscape in mind. Probably best enjoyed late at night.

THE LINK: REMOVED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT

[Liontamer]

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ed2.rsn - "The Prophet" (ed2-114.spc)

There's something about Ravi and him being unable to produce something with a cohesive, balanced texture. The snappy percussion was thin, loud and very exposed. The beatwork as a whole was boring, though the hand drums were a decent change of pace (though the pattern repeats too much). The piano on background used in the intro was OK, but sounded too rigid and synthetic. Piano on lead at :34 could have stood out a bit more. The synth acoustic guitar was too quiet (though making it too loud would further expose its needless repetition).

Checking out the sound in the right and left channels alone, it sounds like little if any panning was ever employed here. Even if there's a little, the soundfield feels too centered. I'm rather convinced Ravi has no concept of what panning is, and doesn't feel particularly inclined to find out.

The arrangement certainly takes the original in a new direction, but once the basic ideas are laid out on piano, the melodic content was basically on cruise control and failed to retain interest. I respect the instrumental variation present throughout the mix, but most of the patterns you used dragged on for too long and got stale: the beats, the hand drums, the acoustic guitar, and most importantly the piano on melody. The whole thing felt rather plodding and unfocused.

NO

[The Orichalcon]

The percussion in this mix is a good basis, it needs to build up to something more interesting though. That pretty much sums up everything in the mix, it keeps this mellow tone for the majority of the mix. Try spicing it up by building up to a proper groove/climactic section or something. If you want a chillout style piece, it needs to be more complex. Needs more stuff to capture the listeners attention, right now it's rather bland.

The production is pretty good as far as I can tell on my headphones, everything is fairly mellow. Nothing that stands out as needing a great deal of work. The sounds are balanced well.

If you do have another go at this, just try building on the arrangement and percussion, and you could have a really nice chillout song here.

NO

[zircon]

SoV prebuilt phrase pitched down an octave.. umm... yeah. Could have done without that. At least use ahh/ohh, this sounds just out of place. A little more reverb/processing on the choir(s) would help the texture too, I think.

The guitar + drum combination is interesting, but something seems a little 'off' about it, and I can't quite place my finger on it. I think the drum pattern itself might be swung in an odd manner, or the samples aren't quite striking in sync with the guitar. Normally this isn't a bad thing, but I don't like the combination here. While I appreciate the percussive changeup at 1:44, it doesn't sound very good. No groove, and the "kick" sample (I know it's not a bass drum) is pitched which sort of throws things off. In fact, all the drum samples here sound somewhat out of place.

The synth stuff and 'real' instruments are nice, I suppose. But Larry is right; the whole thing needs more cohesion and balance. The arrangement wasn't bad for the most part, though it could have used some sort of direction as TO mentioned. Currently it doesn't really go anywhere.. and the ending is really not very good. No resolution.

Refine, resubmit.

NO